They 're a queer , dour , cranky lot , and I WILL say it , Mother . There , give your old man a cup of tea and never mind the way his tongue runs on . Speaking of tea , do you know Mrs. Adam Palmer and Mrs. Jim Martin took tea together at Foster Reid 's last Wednesday afternoon ? '' `` No , why , I thought they were on bad terms , '' said Mrs. Williamson , betraying a little feminine curiosity . `` So they are , so they are . But they both happened to visit Mrs. Foster the same afternoon and neither would leave because that would be knuckling down to the other . So they stuck it out , on opposite sides of the parlour . Mrs. Foster says she never spent such an uncomfortable afternoon in all her life before . She would talk a spell to one and then t ` other . And they kept talking TO Mrs. Foster and AT each other . Mrs. Foster says she really thought she 'd have to keep them all night , for neither would start to go home afore the other . Finally Jim Martin came in to look for his wife , 'cause he thought she must have got stuck in the marsh , and that solved the problem . Master , you ai n't eating anything . Do n't mind my stopping ; I was at it half an hour afore you come , and anyway I 'm in a hurry . My hired boy went home to-day . He heard the rooster crow at twelve last night and he 's gone home to see which of his family is dead . He knows one of 'em is . He heard a rooster crow in the middle of the night onct afore and the next day he got word that his second cousin down at Souris was dead . Mother , if the Master do n't want any more tea , ai n't there some cream for Timothy ? '' CHAPTER V .
A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT Shortly before sunset that evening Eric went XXXXX a walk .
AT So because before for if in of on to