"Gran'ther," called Mary Oldfield from the door, "mother says, 'Won't
you come over to supper?' She saw your smoke."
Nicholas pushed back his chair a little; he felt himself completed.
"You had yours?" he asked, in his usual even tones.
"No, I waited for you."
"Then you come right in an' git it. Take your mug--here, I'll reach it
down for ye--an' there's the Good-Girl plate."
Mary Oldfield was a tall, pleasant looking maid of sixteen, and
standing quietly by, while her grandfather got out her own plate and
mug, she was an amazingly faithful copy of him. They smiled a little at
each other, in sitting down, but there was no closer greeting between
them. They were exceedingly well content to be together again, and this
was so simple and natural a state that there was nothing to say about
it. Only Nicholas looked at her from time to time--her capable brown
hands and careful braids of hair,--and nodded briefly, as he had a way
of nodding at his clocks.
"You know what I told you, Mary, about the Flat-Iron Lot?" he asked,
while Mary buttered her biscuit.
She looked at him in assent.
"Well, I've proved it."
"You don't say!"
Mary had certain antique methods of speech, which the new-fangled
school teacher, not liking to pronounce them vulgar, had tactfully
dubbed "obsolete.
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