Such questions as these went around.
At last some one said that the stranger had been staying at Miss Sibby Bayard’s for the last week.
And immediately Miss Sibby Bayard became the center of attraction and the most important person in the assembly.
The people crowded around her, plied her with a score of questions before she could answer one.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, at last, impatiently. “Yes! She has been staying at my house for five days past. She came from Califoundery, passenger in the ship where Roland was third mate. Yes! The boy fetched her to me, ’cause she had business in this neighborhood.”
“Did you know the nature of her business?” asked the fiery, red-headed, hot-tempered, little William Elk.
“Never dreamed of her doing this here. Thought she was a widdy woman. Thought her business was money. Why, I fetched her to church this morning myself, without a notion that she wanted to come here for anything but just to see the wedding. And she was awful anxious to get here before the ceremony was begun.”
“It is a great pity that you did not arrive before it was finished,” said the tall, dark, gloomy Thomas Grandiere.
“So it were. I can’t gainsay that. And so we should ‘a’ been here if it hadn’t been for the stubborn nater of that mule o’ mine; for, you see, I had no other conveyance, and had to drive my wisitor here in the cart. And, if ever Old Scratch got into a brute beast, he got into that mule this morning. Couldn’t get him out of a creep to save my life! And he balked so, coming up Indian Creek Hill, that I thought he would have upset us into the water—and it froze over! So we didn’t get here till after the ceremony was over. There, that is all I know about it! Miss Hedge and Miss Sukey Grandiere spent an afternoon and took tea at my house, along with her, and maybe they can tell you something,” said the old lady.
And immediately she was deserted in favor of the sisters, who became, in their turn, the center of interest.