She had never been one to send where she could go, but for the time Lot Gordon's will had overcome hers.

"Tell your husband to go to the parson's and the sheriff's, quick, and I will go for the doctor," said she, and was flashing out of the yard in her red cloak before Margaret Bean had time to turn herself about from the prospect of her own going.

Then she ordered her husband imperiously into his boots and great-coat and tippet, and sent him forth.
She finished the gruel, and took it in to the sick man, and fed him with hard thrusts of the spoon.

Lot looked about feebly for Madelon, and Margaret Bean replied to the look, in her husky voice, "She's gone, instead of me.

I've got rheumatism too bad to venture out in such a storm and get my petticoats bedraggled." She spoke with a little whine of defiant crying, but Lot took no notice.