She hastened up the stairs.  Galusha wiped his forehead and breathed heavily.  There was a knock on the door leading to the dining room; it opened and Primmie’s head appeared.

“I heard her go upstairs,” she whispered, hoarsely.  “Is it all right, Mr. Bangs?  Was there good news in that What-you-call-it-Bancroft letter, Mr. Bangs?  Was there?”

“Go away, Primmie!  Go away!”

“I’m a-goin’.  But was there?”

“Yes—­ah—­no—­I—­I guess so.”

“Lord everlastin’ of Isrul!  My savin’ soul!”

Martha’s footsteps on the stairs caused the head to disappear and the door to close.  Miss Phipps appeared, her hand clasping a highly ornate document.

“Here’s the certificate,” she said, breathlessly.  “I’m so upset and excited I don’t know hardly whether I’m in the channel or hard aground, as father used to say, but I’ve signed my name on the back.  Once when I sold two shares of railroad stock he left me I had to sign on the back there.  I hope I’ve done it in the right place.”

Galusha declared the signature to be quite right, yes.  As a matter of fact, he could not have told for certain that there was a signature there.  He crammed the certificate into his pocket.

“Oh, my sakes!” protested Martha, “you aren’t goin’ to just put it loose into that pocket, are you?  Don’t you think it ought to go in your—­your wallet, or somewhere?”

“Eh?  Why—­why, I presume it had. . . .  Dear me, yes. . . .  It would be a—­a joke if I lost it, wouldn’t it?”

“A joke!  Well, it wouldn’t be my notion of a joke, exactly.”

“Oh, dear, dear!  Did I say ‘joke’?  I didn’t mean that it would actually be—­ah—­humorous, of course.  I meant . . .  I meant. . . .  Really, I don’t think I know what I meant.”

“I don’t believe you do.  Mr. Bangs, I truly think you are more excited about all this than I am, and all on my account.  What can I ever say—­or do—­to—­”

“Please, please, Miss Martha!  Dear me, dear me, don’t speak in that way.  It’s so—­ah—­nonsensical, you know.  Now if—­if I may have my coat and—­ah—­cap—­”

“Cap!  Goodness gracious, you weren’t plannin’ to wear that old cap, earlaps and all, to Boston, were you?  And—­mercy me!  I didn’t think of it until this minute—­the train doesn’t go for ’most two hours.”

She burst out laughing and, because she was overwrought and a trifle hysterical, she laughed a good deal.  Galusha laughed even longer than she did, not because he was hysterical, but because laughing was very much easier and safer than answering embarrassing questions.

When it really was time to leave for the railroad station and Galusha, not wearing the earlapped cap, but hatted and garbed as became his rank and dignity, was standing on the stone step by the outside door, she said: 

“Now do be careful, Mr. Bangs.”