There was a silence. Cyrus loves to talk, but there are some subjects on which it is reserved. Johanna Ross is one of them. All looked at Miss Almeria, who was turning a hem with exquisite nicety. She felt the look and responded, a slight flush rising to her smooth cheek.
"Miss Ross is a native of Cyrus," she said, "but has not lived here for many years. Twenty, I think, sister?"
"Twenty!" assented Miss Egeria; there was a general confirmatory murmur.
"She is a person of marked abilities, and has always felt—I believe—that Cyrus did not afford sufficient scope for these abilities. She has occupied a responsible position in a large establishment—wholesale—in the city of New York. This has absorbed all her time and energies; she has not felt—until now—that Cyrus had any claim upon them. May I trouble you for the eighty cotton, Mr. Mallow?"
"Certingly! certingly, Miss Bygood!" Mr. Mallow, in his haste to comply with the request, upset his big basket, and spools, tape, buttons, flew in every direction. How the ladies flew after them! How gracefully Miss Egeria glided in pursuit of the big spool of linen thread! how majestically Miss Almeria bent to capture the flood of buttons that poured into her silken lap! how Mrs. Wibird pounced, and Melissa hopped and fluttered! As for Mr. Jordano, he had an encounter with a skein of darning cotton, and entangled himself with it in a quite unbelievable way, and had to be rescued by Miss Egeria. It was a most exciting incident; they spoke of it for weeks after. Mr. Mallow, meantime, sat with the overturned basket still on his knees, grasping it tight, as if he feared it would follow the rest, and ejaculating, "My! my! I am surprised!"
"I make my 'pologies!" he said finally, when the last button had been restored to its place. "I make my 'pologies, ladies! I don't know as I ever did such a thing before. Quite a cat's trophy, I'm sure."
Flushed and breathless with agitation and vicarious exertion, the good gentleman took up his work again, but uttered an exclamation of discomfiture. "There! I've unthreaded my needle. Lissy, you know what I say; I'm no dromedary—I would say camel! Thread it for me, will you, dearie?"
While the threading was in process, Miss Almeria was advising with Mr. Jordano in low tones, as to the precise wording of the item which was to reveal to Cyrus at large the advent of Miss Johanna Ross. He had already, the evening before, submitted to her his account of Kitty's arrival, a piece of writing of which he was modestly proud. It began, "Flushed with oriflammes was the western sky, and Old Sol still shed his cheering ray over Cyrus and environs——"
At this moment the door flew open, and Mrs. Sharpe appeared, with Cissy close behind her. Well! they did look like an old vixen and a young one, there was no doubt about it, though of course Tom ought not to have said it.
"Good-evenin', all!" Mrs. Sharpe was panting, as if she had hurried. "I thought I'd make a run-in: I calc'lated I should find you here, Almeria 'n' Egeria. I want to know if you've heard——" her voice failed her, and she sat down, fanning herself with the "cloud" she had pulled off her head. "I hastened too much," she panted. "I got to get my breath!"