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“I got your shavin’-water all ready,” she began. “Don’t you burn ye when ye turn it out.”

It had once been said of the Widder Poll that if she could hold her tongue, the devil himself couldn’t get ahead of her. But fortune had not gifted her with such endurance, and she always spoke too often and too soon.

“Brad Freeman’s been up here,” she continued, eying Heman, as she drew out the supper-table and put up the leaves. “I dunno’s I ever knew anybody so took up as he is with that concert, an’ goin’ to the vestry to sing to-night, an’ all. He said he’d call here an’ ride ‘long o’ you, an’ I told him there’d be plenty o’ room, for you’d take the pung.”

If Heman felt any surprise at her knowledge of his purpose, he did not betray it. He poured out his shaving-water, and looked about him for an old newspaper.

“I ain’t goin’ in the pung,” he answered, without glancing at her. “The shoe’s most off’n one o’ the runners now.”

The Widder Poll set a pie on the table with an emphasis unconsciously embodying her sense that now, indeed, had come the time for remedies.

“I dunno what you can take,” she remarked, with that same foreboding liveliness. “Three on a seat, an’ your bass-viol, too!”

Heman was lathering his cheeks before the mirror, where a sinuous Venus and a too-corpulent Cupid disported themselves in a green landscape above the glass. “There ain’t goin’ to be three,” he said, patiently. “T’others are goin’ by themselves.”

The Widder took up her stand at a well-chosen angle, and looked at him in silence. He paid no attention to her, and it was she who, of necessity, broke into speech.

“Well! I’ve got no more to say. Do you mean to tell me you’d go off playin’ on fiddles an’ bass-viols, an’ leave me, your own wife’s sister, settin’ here the whole evenin’ long, all swelled up with the toothache?”

Heman often felt that he had reached a state of mind where nothing could surprise him, but this point of view was really unexpected. He decided, however, with some scorn, that the present misunderstanding might arise from a confusion of terms in the feminine mind.

“This ain’t the concert,” he replied, much as if she had proposed going to the polls. “It’s the rehearsal. That means where you play the tunes over. The concert ain’t comin’ off for a month.”

And now the Widder Poll spoke with the air of one injured almost beyond reparation.

“I’d like to know what difference that makes! If a man’s goin’ where he can’t take his womenfolks, I say he’d better stay to home! an’ if there’s things goin’ on there’t you don’t want me to git hold of, I tell you, Heman Blaisdell, you’d better by half stop shavin’ you now, an’ take yourself off to bed at seven o’clock! Traipsin’ round playin’ the fiddle at your age! Ain’t I fond o’ music?”

“No, you ain’t!” burst forth Heman, roused to brief revolt where his beloved instrument was concerned. “You don’t know Old Hunderd from Yankee Doodle!”

The Widder walked round the table and confronted him as he was turning away from the glass, shaving-mug in hand.

“You answer me one question! I know who’s goin’ to be there, an’ set in the chorus an’ sing alto. Brad Freeman told me, as innercent as a lamb. Heman Blaisdell, you answer me? Be you goin’ to bring anybody here to this house, an’ set her in poor Mary’s place? If you be, I ought to be the fust one to know it.”

Heman looked at the shaving-mug for a moment, as if he contemplated dashing it to the floor. Then he tightened his grasp on it, like one putting the devil behind him.

“No, I ain’t,” he said, doggedly, adding under his breath, “not unless I’m drove to ‘t.”

“I dunno who could ha’ done more,” said the Widder, so patently with the air of continuing for an indefinite period that Heman reached up for his hat. “Where you goin’? Mercy sakes alive! don’t you mean to eat no supper, now I’ve got it all ready?”