in
power do you s'pose she'll do with it all?"

Susanna rather reluctantly yielded the toaster, looking speculatively
over her spectacles at her would-be helper. Here was another man gone
daft, or apparently so. Then she remarked, testily:

"I don't see what's happened all you men to talk so odd. Here's Jim
Pettijohn been here a-offerin' his services to help Eunice look after a
gold mow, or somethin'. An' me that surprised you could knock me down
with a feather, just to see him walkin' up our front path. We ain't
never had no 'casion for visits from the Squire--not sence he got to be
one. Before then, years ago, when he was a humbly little barefoot shaver
runnin' 'round loose, 'cause his ma was too poor to feed him, why the
Maitlands used to half keep him. We none of us Maitlands has ever liked
him, though. And now you--It ain't for the love of toastin' bread that
you've set yourself down 'longside this fireplace, Deacon Meakin, and I
do wish you'd put me out my misery an' tell plump and straight what's
possessin' this village of Marsden this day!"

"You pretend you don't know, widow?"

"No, I don't pretend. I never 'pretended' a thing in my life. I say
plain an' square what I mean an' no hints nor inyendys about it. Now, I
ask you as man to man, or widow to deacon, what's all this fuss beyond
just Moses gettin' his bones broke? There's something, and it seems to
belong to our folks, yet me nor Eunice don't know a touch about it,
nuther one. Now, tell."

The slice of bread fell from the two-pronged fork into the fire, but
neither of this worthy pair observed the fact. For at once the deacon
plunged into his story, relating the varied rumors which were at that
moment being excitedly discussed by every other fireside in Marsden, as
by this; and the grain of truth extracted from the mass was
that--something out of the common had happened, yet nobody knew just
what; that Katharine and Montgomery were the chief actors in the drama,
with Moses a possible accessory. Also, that to Miss Maitland the whole
affair was known "root and branch," and that she had been true to her
character and refused to share her affairs with even the friendliest of
neighbors.

"And now, Susanna Sprigg, what do you say to that?" demanded the deacon,
exultantly, when he had finished his garbled narrative.

"I say--_bosh_! And you've burned the toast. But I've got enough done,
anyway. We always 'feed' at five o'clock in the mornin' an' milk ri