"Baby, indeed! I don't wonder you ask, my dear. Tell her what it's for, Cornelia Croly!"
"For the deep-sea fishermen, my love!" Miss Croly glowed softly. "Most people send them gray mufflers, you know, but I feel as if a little variety, a touch of color, in their dangerous lives, would be desirable. The ocean! so grand, but so fraught with peril!"
"In a storm, you understand," Madam Flynt actually snorted this time; "a pink, blue and yellow muffler would be more comforting than a gray one. Of course! Any one can see that!"
"You are pleased to be facetious, my dear Clarissa;" Miss Croly paused, her hand on the door; "but I conceive that in case of disaster, the attention of a—of a bark of rescue would be more readily attracted by the waving of a bright object than of a dull one!"
She slipped out quickly and shut the door quietly upon the last word. Madam Flynt looked after her with an air of exasperation.
"The most provoking woman—I have half a mind to call her back! What were you saying, my dear?"
I was saying as quickly as I could how very well Madam Flynt was looking. I hoped the rheumatism was fairly routed this time. The dear lady's brow cleared at once.
"Much better! I am bound to say that it is much better than I ever expected it to be. Cornelia Croly, who has really more sense than you would give her credit for"—she cast another exasperated glance at the door—"says that I seem ten years younger, and I certainly do move much more freely than I have for years. It is partly the driving: Kitty is a delightful companion, you know, and she keeps me out a good part of the afternoon, instead of skimping the last ten minutes of the hour, as Flanagan did—old wretch! His carriage was uncomfortable, too, and as for his horses! Every day he would ask regularly whether I would have 'the plain hoss or the double-speeder:' the double-speeder went about four miles an hour; as for the other—well, he's dead, and Flanagan, too, so no matter. John Tucker's horses, and the cee springs, and Kitty and all, makes driving a very different matter, I can tell you. But besides that, my dear, I verily believe"—Madam Flynt nodded this time, till her green cap ribbons quivered—"I verily believe Johanna has something to do with it!"
"Johanna?"
Well, I had only arrived the day before, and Kitty was out when I flew into Ross House on my way to Madam Flynt's: going to Kitty's did not count as a visit, of course!