“Theme and variations all here,” said Cicely, as they passed the open door of the parlor on their way up-stairs to lay aside their wraps; “they haven’t spared us a trill.”
“Well, you won’t be spared either,” said Cousin Sarah Cray. “You’ll have to sing.”
She proved a true prophet; Cicely was called upon to add what she could to the entertainments of the evening. Her voice was slender and clear; to-night it pleased her to sing straight on, so rapidly that she made mince-meat of the words of her song, the delicate little notes almost seeming to come from a flute, or from a mechanical music-bird screwed to a chandelier. Later, however, Miss Matilda Debbs supplied the missing expression when she gave them:
“Slee—ping, I dreamed, love,
Dreamed, love, of thee;
O’er—ther—bright waves, love,
Float—ing were we.”
Cicely seemed possessed by one of her wild moods. “I’ve been to the window; the tar-and-turpentine man is looking over the gate,” she said, in a low voice, to Eve. “I’m going out to say to him, ‘Scotts, wha hae! Send in a tub.’”
Presently she came by Eve’s chair again. “Have you seen the geranium in Miss Leontine’s hair? Let us get grandpa out on the veranda with her, alone; she has been madly in love with him ever since he chucked her under the chin. What’s more, grandpa knows it, too, and he’s awfully frightened; he always goes through the back streets now, like a thief.”
There was a peal at the door-bell. “Tar-and-turpentine man coming in,” murmured Cicely.
Susannah appeared with a letter. “Fer Mis’ Morrison,” she said.
There was a general laugh. For “Mister Cotesworth,” not sure that Eve would keep his secret, and alarmed for the safety of his official position, had taken to delivering his letters in person; clad in his best black coat, with a silk hat, the blue goggles, and a tasselled cane, he not only delivered them with his own hands, but he declaimed the addresses in a loud tone at the door. Not finding Cicely at home, he had followed her hither. “Fer Mis’ Fer’nen Morrison. A ferwerded letter,” he said to Susannah in the hall, at the top of his voice.
The judge had gone to the dining-room with Miss Polly, to see her little dog, which was ailing. Cicely put the letter in her pocket.