"I guess you better ask him in,"
concluded Enoch. "Don't you let him bother you."
Amelia turned about with the grand air of a woman repulsed.
"He _don't_ bother me," said she, "an' I _will_ let him in." She walked
to the door, stepping on buttons as she went, and conscious, when she
broke them, of a bitter pleasure. It added to her martyrdom.
She flung open the door, and called herself a fool in the doing; for
the little old man outside was in the act of turning away. In another
instant, she might have escaped. But he was only too eager to come back
again, and it seemed to Amelia as if he would run over her, in his
desire to get in.
"There! there! 'Melia," said he, pushing past her, "can't stop to talk
till I git near the fire. Guess you were settin' in the kitchen, wa'n't
ye? Don't make no stranger o' me. That your man?"
She had shut the door, and entered, exasperated anew by the rising
wind. "That's my husband," said she coldly. "Enoch, here's cousin
Josiah Pease."
Enoch looked up benevolently over his spectacles, and put out a horny
left hand, the while the other guarded his heap of treasures. "Pleased
to meet you, sir," said he. "You see I'm tinkerin' a clock."
To Enoch, the explanation was enough.
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