"Here comes mother," she said, with a sort of breathlessness, as if speaking her thought aloud, and through the open door the Marches could see the old lady on the stairs.
She paused half-way down, and turning, called up: "Coonrod! Coonrod! You bring my shawl down with you." Her daughter Mela called out to her, "Now, mother, Christine 'll give it to you for not sending Mike." "Well, I don't know where he is, Mely, child," the mother answered back.
"He ain't never around when he's wanted, and when he ain't, it seems like a body couldn't git shet of him, nohow." "Well, you ought to ring for him!" cried Miss Mela, enjoying the joke.
Her mother came in with a slow step; her head shook slightly as she looked about the room, perhaps from nervousness, perhaps from a touch of palsy.

In either case the fact had a pathos which Mrs.March confessed in the affection with which she took her hard, dry, large, old hand when she was introduced to her, and in the sincerity which she put into the hope that she was well.
"I'm just middlin'," Mrs.Dryfoos replied.

"I ain't never so well, nowadays.

I tell fawther I don't believe it agrees with me very well here, but he says I'll git used to it.

He's away now, out at Moffitt," she said to March, and wavered on foot a moment before she sank into a chair.