Here Mrs. Diggs dropped Claire's hand, and burst into a loud, hilarious laugh. Her mirth quite convulsed her for several seconds.
"Cornelia Van Horn!" she presently shouted in a riotously gleeful way. "Myself and Cornelia Van Horn! That is what you mean. Isn't it, now? Isn't it?"
She was looking at Claire with both hands in her lap and her angular body bent oddly forward. She gave the idea of a humorous human interrogation-mark.
"Well, yes," said Claire, soberly, and a little offendedly; "I do mean that. Pray what is there so funny about it?"
Mrs. Diggs again became convulsed with laughter: "Funny!" she at length managed to say. "Why, it's magnificent! It's delicious! You're going to tilt against Cornelia! Of course you are! You don't know a soul yet; you're quite obscure; but you have a sublime self-confidence. That is always the armor-bearer of genius; it carries the spear and shield of the conqueror. My dear, I always wanted to have somebody beard Cornelia in her den, don't you know, like the Douglas! I'm with you—don't forget that! I'll help you all I can. And when you've shaken the pillars of New York society to their foundations, please be grateful and recollect that I set you up to it."
She threw back her head and laughed again, in her boisterous, vehement, but never ill-bred way.
Claire sat and watched her. She was not even smiling now; she was biting her lip. She had concluded, some time ago, that she understood Mrs. Diggs perfectly. But she did not know, at present, in what spirit to take this noisy paroxysm. Was it sincere, amicable amusement, or was it pitiless and impudent mockery?
XV.
But Claire's doubts were soon settled. If that visit did not precisely end them, a few succeeding days forever laid the ghost of her spleen. Mrs. Diggs had been jocundly candid, and that was all. No baleful sarcasms had pulsed beneath her vivacious prophecies. She soon convinced Claire that she was a stanch and loyal confederate.