Nor was it less evident that the other lady was the mother of Mrs. Belknap-Jackson; I mean to say, the confirmed Mixer--an elderly person of immense bulk in gray walking-skirt, heavy boots, and a flowered blouse that was overwhelming. Her face, under her grayish thatch of hair, was broad and smiling, the eyes keen, the mouth wide, and the nose rather a bit blobby. Although at every point she was far from vogue, she impressed me not unpleasantly. Even her voice, a magnificently hoarse rumble, was primed with a sort of uncouth good-will which one might accept in the States. Of course it would never do with us. I fancied I could at once detect why they had called her the “Mixer.” She embraced Mrs. Effie with an air of being about to strangle the woman; she affectionately wrung the hands of Cousin Egbert, and had grasped my own tightly before I could evade her, not having looked for that sort of thing. “That’s Cousin Egbert’s man!” called Mrs. Effie. But even then the powerful creature would not release me until her daughter had called sharply, “Maw! Don’t you hear? He’s a _man_!” Nevertheless she gave my hand a parting shake before turning to the others. “Glad to see a human face at last!” she boomed. “Here I’ve been a month in this dinky hole,” which I thought strange, since we were surrounded by league upon league of the primal wilderness. “Cooped up like a hen in a barrel,” she added in tones that must have carried well out over the lake. “Cousin Egbert’s man,” repeated Mrs. Effie, a little ostentatiously, I thought. “Poor Egbert’s so dependent on him--quite helpless without him.” Cousin Egbert muttered sullenly to himself as he assisted me with the bags. Then he straightened himself to address them. “Won him in a game of freeze-out,” he remarked quite viciously. “Does he doll Sour-dough up like that all the time?” demanded the Mixer, “or has he just come from a masquerade? What’s he represent, anyway?” And these words when I had taken especial pains and resorted to all manner of threats to turn him smartly out in the walking-suit of a pioneer! “Maw!” cried our hostess, “do try to forget that dreadful nickname of Egbert’s.” “I sure will if he keeps his disguise on,” she rumbled back. “The old horned toad is most as funny as Jackson.” Really, I mean to say, they talked most amazingly. I was but too glad when they moved on and we could follow with the bags. “Calls her ‘Maw’ all right now,” hissed Cousin Egbert in my ear, “but when that begoshed husband of hers is around the house she calls her ‘Mater.’”