She was
trying a new recipe for some dinner comfort for Professor Hardage,
when her old cook, who also answered the doorbell, returned to the
kitchen with word that Mr. Webb was in the parlor.
"Why, I paid him for his milk," exclaimed Miss Anna, without
ceasing to beat and stir. "And what is he doing in the parlor?
Why didn't he come around to the side door? I'll be back in a
moment." She took off her apron from an old habit of doing so
whenever she entered the parlor.
She gave her dairyman the customary hearty greeting, hurried back
to get him a glass of water, inquired dispassionately about grass,
inundated him with a bounteous overflow of her impersonal humanity.
But he did not state his business, and she grew impatient to return
to her confection.
"Do I owe you for anything, Mr. Webb?" she suddenly asked, groping
for some clew to this lengthening labyrinthine visit.
He rose and going to the piano raked heavily off of the top of it a
glass jar and brought it over to her and resumed his seat with a
speaking countenance.
"Cream!" cried Miss Anna, delighted, running her practised eye
downward along the bottle to discover where the contents usually
began to get blue: it was yellow to the bottom. "How much is it?
I'm afraid we are too poor to buy so much cream all at once."
"It has no price; it is above price."
"How much is it, Mr. Webb?" she insisted with impatience.
"It is a free gift."
"Oh, what a beautiful present!" exclaimed Miss Anna, holding it up
to the light admiringly.
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