ut confined his remarks chiefly to the weather, while Holcroft, who
had an uneasy sense of being overreached in some undetected way, was
abstracted and laconic. He was soon on the road home, however, with
Mrs. Mumpson and Jane. Cousin Lemuel's last whispered charge was,
"Now, for mercy's sake, do keep your tongue still and your hands busy."

Whatever possibilities there may be for the Ethiopian or the leopard,
there was no hope that Mrs. Mumpson would materially change any of her
characteristics. The chief reason was that she had no desire to
change. A more self-complacent person did not exist in Oakville. Good
traits in other people did not interest her. They were insipid, they
lacked a certain pungency which a dash of evil imparts; and in the
course of her minute investigations she had discerned or surmised so
much that was reprehensible that she had come to regard herself as
singularly free from sins of omission and commission. "What have I ever
done?" she would ask in her self-communings. The question implied so
much truth of a certain kind that all her relatives were in gall and
bitterness as they remembered the weary months during which she had
rocked idly at their firesides. With her, talking was as much of a
necessity as breathing; but during the ride to the hillside farm she,
in a sense, held her breath, for a keen March wind was blowing.

She was so quiet that Holcroft grew hopeful, not realizing that the
checked flow of words must have freer course later on. A cloudy
twilight was deepening fast when they reached the dwelling. Holcroft's
market wagon served for the general purposes of conveyance, and he
drove as near as possible to the kitchen door. Descending from the
front seat, which he had occupied alone, he turned and offered his hand
to assist the widow to alight, but she nervously poised herself on the
edge of the vehicle and seemed to be afraid to venture. The wind
fluttered her scanty draperies, causing her to appear like a bird of
prey about to swoop down upon the unprotected man. "I'm afraid to jump
so far--" she began.

"There's the step, Mrs. Mumpson."

"But I can't see it. Would you mind lifting me down?"

He impatiently took her by the arms, which seemed in his grasp like the
rounds of a chair, and put her on the ground.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, in gushing tones, "there's nothing to equal the
strong arms of a man."

He hastily lifted out her daughter, and said, "You had getter hurr