“Oh, Mrs. Munger!” she called back, bridling with pleasure at being greeted in that way by the chief lady of South Hatboro', and struggling to keep up a dignified indifference at the same time. “Why, Annie!” she added.
“Good morning, Emmeline,” said Annie; she annexed some irrelevancies about the weather, which Mrs. Munger swept away with business-like robustness.
“We were driving down to your house to find you. I want to see the principal ladies of your church, and talk with them about our Social Union. You've heard about it?”
“Well, nothing very particular,” said Mrs. Gerrish; she had probably heard nothing at all. After a moment she asked, “Have you seen Mrs. Wilmington yet?”
“No, I haven't,” cried Mrs. Munger. “The fact is, I wanted to talk it over with you and Mr. Gerrish first.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Gerrish, brightening. “Well, I was just going right there. I guess he's in.”
“Well, we shall meet there, then. Sorry I can't offer you a _seat_. But there's nothing but the rumble, and that wouldn't hold you _all_.”
Mrs. Munger called this back after starting her pony. Mrs. Gerrish did not understand, and screamed, “_What_?”
Mrs. Munger repeated her joke at the top of her voice.
“Oh, I can walk!” Mrs. Gerrish yelled at the top of hers. Both the ladies laughed at their repartee.
“She's as jealous of Mrs. Wilmington as a cat,” Mrs. Munger confided to Annie as they drove away; “and she's just as pleased as Punch that I've spoken to her first. Mrs. Wilmington won't mind. She's so delightfully indifferent, it really renders her almost superior; you might forget that she was a village person. But this has been an immense stroke. I don't know,” she mused, “whether I'd better let her get there first and prepare her husband, or do it myself. No; I'll let _her_. I'll stop here at Gates's.”
She stopped at the pavement in front of a provision store, and a pale, stout man, in the long over-shirt of his business, came out to receive her orders. He stood, passing his hand through the top of a barrel of beans, and listened to Mrs. Munger with a humorous, patient smile.
“Mr. Gates, I want you to send me up a leg of lamb for dinner--a large one.”
“No; _this_ year's,” insisted Mrs. Munger; and Gates gave way with the air of pacifying a wilful child, which would get, after all, only what he chose to allow it.