Mrs. Cliff looked about her with a smile. The sight of these old friends cheered her. All her blues were beginning to fade, as that color always fades in any kind of sunshine.
"I'm glad to see so many of you together," she said. "It almost seems as if you were having some sort of meeting. What is it about,—can't I join in?"
At this there was a momentary silence which threatened to become very embarrassing if it continued a few seconds more, and Miss Cushing was on the point of telling the greatest lie of her career, trusting that the other heirs would stand by her and support her in whatever statements she made, feeling as they must the absolute necessity of saying something instantly. But Miss Inchman spoke before any one else had a chance to do so.
"You're right, Mrs. Cliff," said she, "we are considering something! We didn't come here on purpose to talk about it, but we happened in together, and so we thought we would talk it over. And we all came to the conclusion that it was something which ought to be mentioned to you, and I was asked to speak to you about it."
Four simultaneous gasps were now heard in that little parlor, and four chills ran down the backs of four self-constituted heirs.
"I must say, Susan," remarked Mrs. Cliff, with a good-humored smile, "if you want me to do anything, there's no need of being so wonderfully formal about it! If any one of you, or all of you together, for that matter, have anything to say to me, all you had to do was to come and say it."
"They didn't seem to think that way," said Miss Inchman. "They all thought that what was to be said would come better from me because I'd known you so long, and we had grown up together."
"It must be something out of the common," said Mrs. Cliff. "What in the world can it be? If you are to speak, Susan, speak out at once! Let's have it!"
"That's just what I'm going to do," said Miss Inchman.
If Mrs. Cliff had looked around at the four heirs who were sitting upright in their chairs, gazing in horror at Miss Inchman, she would have been startled, and, perhaps, frightened. But she did not see them. She was so much interested in what her old friend Susan was saying, that she gave to her her whole attention.