40
SHIANA
CHAPTER VI.
RUMOURS.
Abbie.—That was a nice humming I But I wonder why he called her a "bristly hag." I suppose she must have had a thin beard, as the old "badger-woman" has.
Kate.—Who said the old "badger-woman" had a beard?
Abbie.—Oh, indeed, Kate, she has. I have been near her, and I looked well at her chin, and it's full of great thick long hairs, and they are grey, just like bristles. When she saw me noticing them, she laughed and she rubbed them against my forehead, so that I couldn't help screaming with the tickling.
Kate.—It is a pity she didn't put them in your eyes. Maybe that would keep you from looking at people so rudely.
Abbie.—Why then indeed, upon my word and credit, Kate, she did put them into my eyes! And it was that that set me screaming, and not the tickling. There was one of them that was as big and as long as a thick needle, and it went into my eye, and I promise you I didn't forget it for a while. But I don't know if it will cure me of the rudeness.
Kate.—Hush, Abbie, I was joking. There's no rudeness about you, and there never was. But you have what I have not,—you have patience. Perhaps if I had been there, I would not have been able to keep from giving a look at the
