Miss Harriet and Miss Caroline had just smoothed their plumage in the guest-chamber, and were coming down the stairs hand in hand as David and Bethany entered the reception-hall.
This was their first glimpse of David. They had been very curious to see him. Jack had talked about him so much that they recognized him instantly from his description.
Miss Caroline squeezed Miss Harriet's hand, and said in a dramatic whisper, "Sister! the surprise."
"Look at Bethany," remarked Miss Harriet. "How unusually bright she looks, and yet a little flushed and confused. I wonder if he has been saying anything to her. They came in together."
"Pooh!" puffed Miss Caroline. Then they both moved forward with their most beaming "company smile," as Jack called it, to meet Mr. Herschel.
"Come in here," said Mrs. Marion, leading the way into the drawing-room, while Bethany made her escape up stairs.
"Mrs. Courtney, allow me to introduce Mrs. Dameron."
"Sally Atwater!" fairly shrieked Miss Caroline and Miss Harriet in chorus, as a tall, thin woman, with gray hair and sharp, twinkling eyes rose to meet them; "Sally Atwater, for the land's sake! how did you ever happen to get here?"
"It's an old school friend of theirs," explained Mrs. Marion to David, as the twins stood on tiptoe to grasp her around the neck and kiss her repeatedly between their exclamations of joyful surprise. "They haven't seen her since they were married. I'll present you, and then we'll leave them to have a good old gossip."
During the introductions in the drawing-room, Mr. Marion came into the hall, with his gripsack in his hand.