This was spoken to the lady's face; for Toby, seeing that concealment was at an end, had slipped the bolt, and she had come in.
"Wal! now! Mr. Hapgood!" she began, with a simper, which betrayed a little contrition and a good deal of crafty selfishness,--"you mustn't go to bein' too hard on me for that. Consider that I'm a poor widder, and my life war threatened, and I _had_ to do as I did."
"Well, well," said Penn, "I certainly forgive you. Give her a chair, Toby."
Toby placed the chair, and widow Sprowl sat down.
"I couldn't be easy--old friends so--till I had come over to see how you be," she said, folding her hands, and regarding Penn with a solemn pucker of solicitude. "I know, 'twas a dreadful thing; but it's some comfort to think it's nothing I'm any ways to blame fur. It's hard enough for me to lose a boarder, jest at this time,--say nothing about a friend that's been jest like one of my own family, and that I've cooked, and washed, and ironed fur, as if he war my own son!"
And Mrs. Sprowl wiped her eyes, while she carefully watched the effect of her words.
"I acknowledge, you have cooked, washed, and ironed for me very faithfully," said Penn.
"And I thought," said she,--"old friends so,--may be you wouldn't mind making me a present of the trifle you've paid over and above what's due for your board; for I'm a poor widder, as you know, and my only son is a wanderer on the face of the 'arth."
Penn readily consented to make the present--perhaps reflecting that it would be equally impossible for him ever to board it out, or get her to return the money.
"Then there's that old cloak of yourn," said Mrs. Sprowl, sympathizingly. "I believe you partly promised it to me, didn't you? I can manage to get me a cape out on't."
"Yes, yes," said Penn, "you can have the cloak;" while Toby glared with rage behind her chair.
"And I considered 'twouldn't be no more'n fair that you should pay for the----I don't see how in the world I can afford to lose it, bein' a poor widder, and live geeses' feathers at that, and my only son----" She hid her face in her apron, overcome with emotion.
"Fur, you know," she said, "I never would have parted with it fur any money, and it will take at least ten dollars to replace it, which is hard, bein' a poor widder, and as strong a linen tick as ever you see, that I made myself, and that my blessed husband died on, and helped me pick the geese with his own hands; and I never thought, when I took you to board, that ever _that_ bed would be sacrificed by it,--for 'twas on your account, you are ware, it was took last night and done for."