oor Kate fell back on the pillow, quite overcome. "I--I beg your
pardon," she said. "I--I thought the Brewsters lived here. Mrs.
Brewster is a friend of mine. My cousin and I are on our way to
Bothwell and we called here to spend the night with Hannah. When we
found everyone away we just came in and made ourselves at home."

"A likely story," said the red woman.

"We weren't born yesterday," said the man.

Madam Black-and-White didn't say anything, but when the other two had
made their pretty speeches she doubled up in a silent convulsion of
mirth, shaking her head from side to side and beating the air with her
hands.

If they had been nice to us, Kate would probably have gone on feeling
confused and ashamed. But when they were so disagreeable she quickly
regained her self-possession. She sat up again and said in her
haughtiest voice, "I do not know when you were born, or where, but it
must have been somewhere where very peculiar manners were taught. If
you will have the decency to leave our room--this room--until we can
get up and dress we will not transgress upon your hospitality" (Kate
put a most satirical emphasis on that word) "any longer. And we shall
pay you amply for the food we have eaten and the night's lodging we
have taken."

The black-and-white apparition went through the motion of clapping her
hands, but not a sound did she make. Whether he was cowed by Kate's
tone, or appeased by the prospect of payment, I know not, but Mr.
Chapman spoke more civilly. "Well, that's fair. If you pay up it's all
right."

"They shall do no such thing as pay you," said Madam Black-and-White
in a surprisingly clear, resolute, authoritative voice. "If you
haven't any shame for yourself, Robert Chapman, you've got a
mother-in-law who can be ashamed for you. No strangers shall be
charged for food or lodging in any house where Mrs. Matilda Pitman
lives. Remember that I've come down in the world, but I haven't forgot
all decency for all that. I knew you was a skinflint when Amelia
married you and you've made her as bad as yourself. But I'm boss here
yet. Here, you, Robert Chapman, take yourself out of here and let
those girls get dressed. And you, Amelia, go downstairs and cook a
breakfast for them."

I never, in all my life, saw anything like the abject meekness with
which those two big people obeyed that mite. They went, and stood not
upon the order of their going. As the door closed behind them, Mrs.
Matilda Pitman lau