“Well! I wanter know!” said the lady, although the exclamation point was purely conventional. “Abner Langworthy! though perhaps I've no call to say 'Abner.'”
“Same to you, Rosalie--though I say it too,” returned the landlord. “But hol' on just a minit.” He moved forward to the other guest, put the same perfunctory question regarding his needs, received a negative answer, and then returned to the lady and dropped into a chair opposite to her.
“You're looking peart and--fleshy,” he said resignedly, as if he were tolerating his own conventional politeness with his other difficulties; “unless,” he added cautiously, “you're takin' on some new disease.”
“No! I'm fairly comf'ble,” responded the lady calmly, “and you're gettin' on in the vale, ez is natural--though you still kind o' run to bone, as you used.”
There was not a trace of malevolence in either of their comments, only a resigned recognition of certain unpleasant truths which seemed to have been habitual to both of them. Mr. Langworthy paused to flick away some flies from the butter with his professional napkin, and resumed,--
“It must be a matter o' five years sens I last saw ye, isn't it?--in court arter you got the decree--you remember?”
“Yes--the 28th o' July, '51. I paid Lawyer Hoskins's bill that very day--that's how I remember,” returned the lady. “You've got a big business here,” she continued, glancing round the room; “I reckon you're makin' it pay. Don't seem to be in your line, though; but then, thar wasn't many things that was.”
“No--that's so,” responded Mr. Langworthy, nodding his head, as assenting to an undeniable proposition, “and you--I suppose you're gettin' on too. I reckon you're--er--married--eh?”--with a slight suggestion of putting the question delicately.
The lady nodded, ignoring the hesitation. “Yes, let me see, it's just three years and three days. Constantine Byers--I don't reckon you know him--from Milwaukee. Timber merchant. Standin' timber's his specialty.”
“Yes! Mr. Byers is a good provider--and handy. And you? I should say you'd want a wife in this business?”
Mr. Langworthy's serious half-perfunctory manner here took on an appearance of interest. “Yes--I've bin thinkin' that way. Thar's a young woman helpin' in the kitchen ez might do, though I'm not certain, and I ain't lettin' on anything as yet. You might take a look at her, Rosalie,--I orter say Mrs. Byers ez is,--and kinder size her up, and gimme the result. It's still wantin' seven minutes o' schedule time afore the stage goes, and--if you ain't wantin' more food”--delicately, as became a landlord--“and ain't got anythin' else to do, it might pass the time.”