About this time, any one observing the cottage would have seen an old-fashioned phaeton, to which a plump old nag was hitched, driven up to the door and halted, and a man alight and enter at the gate. If the observer had been at Margaret's funeral, he would instantly have recognised the man as the Rev. Mr. Simpson's assistant, Mr. Hodges. The man walked deliberately around to the kitchen, and, tapping at the door, opened it without ceremony and went in, calling out, "Miss Hester, Miss Hester, I 'm a-runnin' right in on you." "I do declare, 'Liphalet Hodges, you do beat all fur droppin' in on a body at unexpected times." "Well, I guess you 're right. My comin' 's a good deal like the second comin' o' the Son o' man 'll be. I guess you 're right." To Miss Prime, Eliphalet Hodges was always unexpected, although he had been dropping in this way before her mother and father died, twenty years gone. "Well, I 'low, 'Liphalet, that you 've heerd the news." "There ain't no grass grows under the feet of the talkers in this town, I tell you." "Dear me! a body can't turn aroun' without settin' a whole forest of tongues a-waggin' every which way." "Oh, well, Miss Hester, we got to 'low that to yore sex. The women folks must talk." "My sex! It ain't my sex only: I know plenty o' men in this town who air bigger gossips 'n the women. I 'll warrant you did n't git this piece o' news from no woman." "Well, mebbe I did n't, but I ca'c'late there wa'n't no men there to git it fust hand." "Oh, I 'll be bound some o' the women had to go an' tell a man the fust thing: some women can't git along without the men." "An' then, ag'in, some of 'em kin, Miss Hester; some of 'em kin." "You 'd jest as well start out an' say what you want to say without a-beatin' about the bush. I know, jest as well as I know I 'm a-livin', that you 've come to tell me that I was a fool fur takin' that child. 'Liphalet, don't pertend: I know it." "Oh, no, Miss Hester; I would n't dast do nothin' like that; you know, 'He that calleth his brother a fool is in danger o' hell fire,' an' I 'low the Lord don't make it no easier when it happens to be a sister. No, Miss Hester, you know yore own business best, an' you 've got along this fur without bein' guided by people. I guess you 'll git through; but a child, Miss Hester, don't you think that it 's a leetle bit resky?" "Resky? I don't see why. The child ain't a-goin' to eat me or burn the house down." "No, no,--none o' that,--I don't mean that at all; but then, you see, you 'ain't never had no--that is--you 'ain't had much experunce in the bringin' up o' childern, specially boys." "Much! I 'ain't had none. But I 've been brought up." "That 's true, that 's true, an' a mighty good job yore mother made of it, too. I don't know of no spryer or stirrin'er woman around here at yore age." "At my age! 'Liphalet, you do talk as ef I was about fifty."