Presently Lilith led her to a seat on the sofa and sat down beside her, holding her hand, gazing into her sweet old face, and uttering her delight in fragmentary words.
“How comes it that I have the joy of seeing you? It was only yesterday evening that I got your dear letter. This very day I was going to write to you to come here to us. Was not that strange? But you always anticipated my wishes, did you not? But what happy inspiration, what angel sent you here?”
“Why, it was him,” replied Aunt Sophie, simply, pointing to the señor. “He fetched me. I believe he could persuade anybody in this world to do anything he wanted. And all in such a hurry, too! I never made up my mind so quick in all my life before; and never shall in all my life again. I declare I was on board of the ship before I well knowed what I was doing.”
The Señor Zuniga broke into one of Alfred Ancillon’s joyous bursts of laughter as he explained:
“If I had given her time to reflect she might have hesitated to come. If I had not hurried her out of her senses I could not have brought her. Hear! I saw your advertisement in the Personal column of the Pursuivant, by chance, just thirteen days ago. I saw that it had been in for some weeks, though I had not observed it. This was on Tuesday. I reflected that I could go to you in person as quickly as I could communicate with you by letter, so I made up my mind to sail the next day by the City of Paris. The steamers from America to Europe are not crowded at this season, whatever the steamers from Europe to America may be. I went to the agent’s office, feeling sure of getting berths, and I got them. I got two tickets, one for myself and one for Aunt Sophie, for I felt sure of persuading her to accompany me——”
“He could persuade any mortal man or woman to do anything he wanted them to do,” put in the old lady.
“Well, you may call it whim, eccentricity or inspiration, but I felt a great desire to take Mrs. Downie with me, and I was resolved to gratify that desire.”
“Yes, he did,” again put in Aunt Sophie. “He come right in the kitchen, where I was sitting down with a blue check apron on, paring apples to make pies for dinner; for, my dear, he went all over the house like a tame kitten; and he says to me all of a sudden:
“‘I want you to let the house take care of itself and go to Europe with me to-morrow morning to see your favorite’ (that was you, my dear).
“And I declare I was so startled I give a jump and let the pan fall, and the apples rolled all over the kitchen floor. Asking me all in a minute to go to Europe with him to-morrow as if it had been going to Harlem or Brooklyn!”