"What ails you? Are you crazy?" was the not unnatural inquiry of Bell.
"Crazy? No!" answered the wild girl. "I wonder if I ever shall be!" and for the instant her eyes were very sad, as if some painful thought had been touched. But the instant after sunshine broke into them again, as she said, making a motion of her hand towards the door:—
"That's he!"
Bell Crawford looked, but did not see any one, and the fact rather added to her impression that Miss Josey had suddenly taken leave of her senses. "Who's he? I don't see him!" she replied.
"Pshaw! how stupid you are!" said Josey, pettishly. "See here. Let me tell you something. Do you remember one day, five or six weeks ago, when I came into your house a little in a hurry, with a bunch of violets for Dick?"
"Yes," said Bell, "I remember it, by the fact that you nearly pulled off the bell-handle because the door was not opened quick enough."
"Right," said Joe, as if she had been complimented by the observation. "That's me. If Betty doesn't answer the bell a little quicker, some of these times, you will find that piece of silver-plating at a junk-shop, sold for old iron. Well, do you happen to remember what I told you and Dick on that occasion?"
"Oh, good gracious, no!" exclaimed Bell provokingly. "Surely you can't expect me to keep any account of what you say in the course of a month. Stop, though—I do remember something. You said, I believe, that coming up Madison Avenue you found the bunch of violets carrying a small boy—or the other way; and that at the same time you found a hat—wasn't it a hat?"
"Bah!" said Joe. "You have kept hold of the wrong end of the story, of course. I said that just as I met the small boy with the violets and their perfume began to set me crazy and make me think of being out in the country among the laughing brooks and the singing birds and the—yes, the cows and the chickens—that just then some one else met the small boy and the violets. That was the proprietor of the eyes, and if it had not been for that outrageous hat I should have had a full view of them. As it was, they nearly spoiled my peace of mind altogether, and I have been sighing ever since—Heigho!—haven't you heard me sighing all around in odd corners?"
"What a goose!" was the complimentary reply of Bell. "If you have sighed, the sound was very much like that of loud talking and laughter. But what has all that to do with to-day, and why were you pointing towards the door?"