“Were they such agents, or what?” asked Lizzie.

Tillie turned to her.  “Whether they were agents?  No, they were just pleasure-seekers.  They were out for a drive and stopped off to eat.”

At this instant the rattling old stage-coach drew up at the gate.

The mother and daughter, paying no heed whatever to the sound, went on with their work, Mrs. Hershey looking a shade more grimly determined as she stirred her ponhaus and Lizzie more sulky.

Tillie had just time to wonder whether she had better slip out before the stranger came in, when a knock on the open kitchen door checked her.

Neither mother nor daughter glanced up in answer to the knock.  Mrs. Hershey resolutely kept her eyes on her caldron as she turned her big spoon about in it, and Lizzie, with sullen, averted face, industriously cut her loaf.

A second knock, followed by the appearance of a good-looking, well-dressed young man on the threshold, met with the same reception.  Tillie, in the background, and hidden by the stove, looked on wonderingly.

The young man glanced, in evident mystification, at the woman by the stove and at the girl at the table, and a third time rapped loudly.

“Good afternoon!” he said pleasantly, an inquiring note in his voice.

Mrs. Hershey and Lizzie went on with their work as though they had not heard him.

He took a step into the room, removing his hat.  “You were expecting me this afternoon, weren’t you?” he asked.

“This is the place,” Lizzie remarked at last.

“You were looking for me?” he repeated.

Mrs. Hershey suddenly turned upon Lizzie.  “Why don’t you speak?” she inquired half-tauntingly.  “You spoke before.”

Tillie realized that Sister Jennie must be referring to Lizzie’s readiness at market that morning to “speak,” in making her agreement with the young man for board.

“You spoke this morning,” the mother repeated.  “Why can’t you speak now?”

“Och, why don’t you speak yourself?” retorted Lizzie.  “It ain’t fur me to speak!”

The stranger appeared to recognize that he was the subject of a domestic unpleasantness.

“You find it inconvenient to take me to board?” he hesitatingly inquired of Mrs. Hershey.  “I shouldn’t think of wishing to intrude.  There is a hotel in the place, I suppose?”

“Yes.  There is a HOtel in New Canaan.”

“I can get board there, no doubt?”

“Well,” Mrs. Hershey replied argumentatively, “that’s a public house and this ain’t.  We never made no practice of takin’ boarders.  To be sure, Jonas he always was fur boarders.  But I ain’t fur!”

“Oh, yes,” gravely nodded the young man.  “Yes.  I see.”

He picked up the dress-suit case which he had set on the sill.  “Where is the hotel, may I ask?”

“Just up the road a piece.  You can see the sign out,” said Mrs. Hershey, while Lizzie banged the bread-box shut with an energy forcibly expressive of her feelings.