"I don't know as anybody's in a hurry, Mis' Sharpe!" Mr. Mallow's tone was less cordial than usual. He did not like Mrs. Sharpe, or her "run-ins." He didn't see, he had confided to Miss Egeria, why a person should have no privation just because he thought fit to keep a hotel. "It isn't as if she was a guest," he said, "paying or invited."
The rest of the company regarded the newcomers with mingled disfavor and curiosity.
"What is it, Cissy?" Mrs. Wibird asked, the latter sentiment overcoming the former.
"Why," began Cissy, nothing loth; "Miss Johanna——"
"Now you hush up, Cissy!" said her mother, sharply. "You told over to Jebuses, and I'm going to tell here. Johanna Ross has come home!" she announced, with an air of dramatic triumph. "She came this afternoon. I saw her with these eyes." She indicated a pair—well, perhaps not exactly a pair—of yellowish eyes, decidedly too near together for beauty.
"We are aware of that!" replied Mr. Mallow majestically. Sitting with his needle poised in air, his knees rather wide apart, to support the big basket firmly and prevent further "cat's trophy," he looked like a mild and rosy Rhadamanthus about to give judgment.
"Oh, you are! Some one got ahead of me!"
Mrs. Sharpe darted a suspicious glance round the friendly circle.
"Well, do you know what she is up to? That—that stay-away—her that Cyrus isn't good enough for, that wouldn't attend her own brother's funeral because she was too stuck-up—do you know what has come to her in judgment? She has come back to Cyrus because she was obliged to! she has come back to saddle herself on her brother's child, that she has neglected ever since she was born; she has taken to her bed, and there she is to remain. Yes, Mr. Mallow! yes, girls! Mr. Jordano, you can put it in the paper, if you're a mind to. Miss Johanna Ross, the fine New York lady who shook the dust of Cyrus off her feet, is a bedridden invalid!"
She gazed around with eager triumph, drinking in the looks of dismay like wine.