“Show these ladies into the parlor, they are friends of mine, and Miss Woodhull will be glad to see ’em.”
He looked as if he would sink, and I didn’t care if he did, clear through to the suller. I should have been glad to have seen him sunk.
I looked severe at him after I had gripped Mary’s hand, and parted with her. He held the door open awful polite, and in a kind of a apoligy way he murtered somethin’ about,
Says I pretty sharp, “Sposin’ she is engaged, is that any reason you should turn Betsey and me out doors?” Says I, “I didn’t keep our folks’es doors locked up when I got engaged to Josiah.” Says I, “sposen’ Miss Woodhull is engaged, she ought to have been engaged, and married, years ago.”
I was in the wrong, and I see it, and ketched holt of my principles convulsively, for I see that my indignant emotions towards that little lyin’ imp was a shakin’ ’em. I hadn’t no right to be a speakin’ aginst the woman of the house to their hired help. I felt as mean as pusley to think I had done it, and says I, mildly,
“I am glad Miss Woodhull is engaged to be married, it takes a load off’en my mind,” says I, “I presume she will settle doun and make a real likely woman.”
At that minute, a door opened right across the hall, and a man come out and shet it agin, and he ketched right holt of my arm, the first thing, and says he,
“Come, Marier Jane, or Marier Ann,” says he, “I can’t really call to mind your precise name this minute, but I think it is Marier any way, or mebby it is Mary Ann. Come, Mary Ann, it is time to be a goin’ home.”
I looked at him with almost fearful dignity, and I says to him with a air so cold that he must have thought it blowed off of Greenland’s icy mountain,
But he never budged a inch, and I jest raised my umberell, and says I, “If you don’t leggo of my arm, I’ll make you leggo.”
Then he leggo. And he stood back a little, but he looked piercin’ly and searchin’ly into my face, and says he,
Then again I spoke with that fearful dignity, and that cold and icy air, 50 degrees under Mr. Zero it was, if it was a degree.
“No Sir! I am proud and happy to say I am not your wife, I am Josiah Allen’s wife.”
He looked real meachin’, and says he, “I beg your pardon mom, but I’ve only been married to my last wife a few hours, havin’ got a divorce from a former companion after dinner yesterday, and I have been so busy since, that I haven’t really got the run of her face yet, though I thought,” he added dreamily, “that I should know that nose agin any where.”