"Yes. Yes, when he does."
"Well, he's goin' to, ain't he? Why, he's been keepin' comp'ny with her for two years. Everybody cal'lates they're engaged."
"Yes. But they don't say they are.... Oh, what is it Aurora?"
Mrs. Chase, who had been listening with her hand at her ears, had caught a little of the conversation.
"If you mean her and George Kent is engaged, Constance," she declared, "they ain't. I asked Elizabeth if they was, myself, asked her much as a month ago, and she said no. Pretty nigh took my head off, too."
Elvira's smile broadened. She nodded, slowly and with mysterious significance. "I'm not so sure about that engagement," she observed. "Some things I've seen lately have set me to thinking. To thinking a good deal.... Um ... yes. It looks to me as if somebody—somebody, I mention no names—may have had a hint of what was coming and began to lay plans according.... No, I shan't say any more—now. And I give in that it seems too perfectly ridiculous to believe. But things like that sometimes do happen, and ... Well, we'll wait and see."
Happy in the knowledge that she had aroused curiosity as well as envy of her superior knowledge, she subsided. Mrs. Tidditt concluded that portion of the discussion.
"Well," she remarked, crisply, "I don't see why we need to sit here talkin' about engagements or folks' gettin' married. Nobody has shown any symptoms of wantin' to marry any of this crowd, so far as I can make out."
While the town was at the very height of its agitation concerning the Knowles will, there came another earthquake. Egbert Phillips returned. He alighted from the train at the Bayport depot on the second morning of Sears's imprisonment in the spare stateroom and before night the information that he imparted—confidentially, of course—and the hints he gave concerning his plans for the future, made the Berry legacies and all the other legacies take second place as gossip kindlers.
Judah came rushing into the house later that afternoon, his arms full of bundles—purchases at Eliphalet's store—and his mouth full of words. He dropped everything, eggs, salt fish, tea and shoe laces, on the kitchen table and tore pell-mell into his lodger's bedroom. Captain Kendrick, propped up with pillows, was of course stretched out in bed. There was what appeared to be a letter in his hand, a letter apparently just received, for a recently opened envelope lay on the comforter beside him, and upon his face was an expression of bewilderment, surprise and marked concern. Judah was too intent upon his news to notice anything else and Sears hastily gathered up letter and envelope and thrust them beneath the pillow. Then Judah broke loose.