"Do you mean to say that there were Yankees in those days?" inquired
Mrs. Jasher frivolously.
The Professor tucked his hands under his shabby coattails and strode
up and down the room warming his rage, which was provoked by such
ignorance.
"Good heavens, madam, where have you lived?" he exclaimed
explosively--"are you a fool, or merely an ignorant woman? I am talking
of prehistoric times, thousands of years ago, when you were probably a
stray atom embedded in the slime."
"Oh, you horrid creature!" cried Mrs. Jasher indignantly, and was about
to give Braddock her opinion, if only to show him that she could hold
her own, when the door opened.
"How are you, Mrs. Jasher?" said Lucy, advancing.
"Here am I and here is Archie. Dinner is ready. And you--"
"I am very hungry," said Mrs. Jasher. "I have been called an atom of the
slime," then she laughed and took possession of young Hope.
Lucy wrinkled her brow; she did not approve of the widow's man-annexing
instinct.