He had always felt a loathing for the woman, and her being a distant relative on his father's side intensified it.
Mrs.Sloane threw open the door, and bade them enter, as if to a festival.

"Walk right in," said she.
There was a wild flutter of hens as they entered.

Mrs.Sloane drove them before her.

"The hen-house roof fell in, an' I have to keep 'em in here," she said, and shooed them and shook her shawl at them, until they alighted all croaking with terror upon the bed in the corner.
Then she looked inquiringly around the room.

"Why," she cried, "she's gone; she was settin' here in this rockin'-chair when I went out.