This speech had a very different effect upon its two hearers. Corona was as nearly angry as her self-contained nature would permit; but, although he did not allow his feelings to betray him, the bishop was delighted. Now they must all go, and that suited him exactly.
"It is a positive and absolute breach of contract!" exclaimed Miss Raybold. "You agreed to remain in my service during my stay in camp, and you have no right to go away now, no matter who else may depart."
Mrs. Perkenpine grinned. "That sort of thing was all very well a week ago," said she, "but it won't work now. I've been goin' to school to myself pretty steady, and I've kept myself in a good deal, too, for not knowin' my lessons, and I've drummed into me a pretty good idea of what I be, and I can tell you I'm not a woman as stays here when Phil Matlack's gone. I'm not a bit scary, but I never stayed in camp yet with all greenhorns but me. When I find myself in that sort of a mess, it's my nater to get out of it. Phil says he's goin' to start the fust thing this afternoon, and that's the time I'm goin', and so, if you would like to go, you can send word by that man in the cart to have you and your things sent for, and we can all clear out together."
"Positively," exclaimed Corona, turning to the bishop, "this is the most high-handed proceeding I ever heard of!"
"That's 'xactly what I think," said Mrs. Perkenpine; "it most takes my breath away to think how high-handed I am. Before I knowed myself I couldn't have been that way to save my skin. There didn't use to be any individdlety about me. You might take a quart of huckleberries and ask yourself what it was particular 'bout any one of them huckleberries--'xceptin' it might be green, and it's a long time since I was that way--and you'd know jest as much about that huckleberry as I knowed about myself. Now it's different. It's just the same as if there was only one huckleberry in a quart box, and it ain't no trouble to see all around that."
"I think, Miss Raybold," said the bishop, "that this good woman has prosecuted her psychical researches with more effect than any of us."
"Bosh!" exclaimed Miss Raybold. "Do you really think I must leave this camp at the dictation of that person?"