Mrs. Doggett drove homeward in a state of ecstasy. In the prophetess' vague words she saw the certain marriage of Miss Lucy James and Mr. Galvin Brock. Of a surety Mr. Brock was the man who would "make a good living" for her, and was he not the most worthy? Perhaps Mr. Lindsay had travelled as much as Mr. Brock, but Mrs. Doggett cast this uneasy thought aside. Surely Mr. Brock was the fortunate man. Mrs. Doggett reached her home in a drizzling rain: her bonnet was drooping, and her vehicle, and dress were heavily splashed with mud, when she drove slowly in the yard, the pigs trotting placidly behind. "How's Bob Ed?" asked Mr. Doggett as he assisted her to alight. "Now Eph," Mrs. Doggett's voice was full of remonstrance, "did you thenk I wuz a goin' yonside town with them pigs a trailin' me?" "I hadn't missed them peegs: did they foller ye?" Mr. Doggett's grin irritated Mrs. Doggett. "I reckon they _did_!" she complained, "and I jest had to creep! I wuz afeerd ef I went through town they'd be picked up on Wild Cat Row, maybe, so I jest went across the river to see old July Pullins, and tuck the pigs with me." "Over that road? Well, I do know!" "Yes, over that road!" Mrs. Doggett jerked out resentfully: "and I had a plumb skeer a comin' back. Don't you thenk, yonside the bridge, I met one them aut'mobile waggins--a red painted one--the reddest theng this side o' predition! Big Money, he 'lowed that horn the feller blowed when he seed us, wuz old Gab'el's trump, I reckon. He come a one o' killin' me! He tuck to backin', and ef that man hadn't jumped out and ketcht holt the bridle, and helt him while t'other man driv' that red devil past us, he'd 'a' backed plumb over into the river!" "Well, that wuz kind o' him!" remarked Mr. Doggett. "He wuz a mighty polite, takin' kind o' man," continued Mrs. Doggett. "They must 'a' been a couple them Northern milli'n'ers out on a ja'nt. They wuzn't our kind o' people. I wished I'd 'a' asked that un that helt Big Money, who he wuz, but I wuz so pestered, hit never come in my mind onct!" "I thought after you started, I'd ort to 'a' went with you," condoled Mr. Doggett, "although the terbaccer needed me mighty bad; but you got back all right fer all your trouble, ef I didn't go. A body has a heap to be thankful fer, now don't they?" "Well hit hain't no matter now," Mrs. Doggett philosophized, taking off her forlorn bonnet, "though ef I'd 'a' knew hit wuz a gona rain I wouldn't 'a' went." CHAPTER VI A NEIGHBORLY CALL "With the lips meanwhile she can honor it! Oil of flattery, the best antifriction known, subdues all irregularities whatsoever." A slight stiffness of limb next morning held Mrs. Doggett an unwilling prisoner in bed, until a somewhat later hour than she arose on the day of her visit to the seeress, and by eight o'clock, when she had gotten her morning's work done, the snow, which had begun to fall at daybreak, was full six inches deep.