"My dear Miss Ross——" he began, with a tremulous bow.
"If you call me 'Miss', I'll throw the pillow at you and spoil your lovely necktie!" said the lady.
"Oh! oh!—te-hee! te-hee!" tittered Mr. Bygood.
"I used to be Jo," Miss Ross went on; and her sharp eyes softened. "Little naughty Jo, coming to play with little proper Almy and little saintly Gerie, and getting them both into hot water. Have you any peppermints in your pocket, Mr. Bygood? How many generations of children have you supplied with peppermints, my dear soul?"
"Well, Johanna!" Mr. Bygood twinkled; "several, I suppose; several! Yours was the first, though, my dear. You were a very good child, a very good child. All my little friends have been good children. You—you—you look extremely well, Johanna, for a—a sufferer! I trust——"
"I am extremely well!" said Miss Johanna calmly. "Bedridden, but well. Gerie wanted me to be carried to the party in my bed—" an agonized cough from the hall announced that Miss Egeria was within hearing; "at least we spoke of it. Cheer up, Gerie! Nobody would lay it to your door. 'Johanna! always peculiar!'" (She shot a wicked glance at Miss Almeria, who maintained her dignity, but could not suppress her blush.) "Can't you hear them say it? But I've decided not to go. I really think I am having the cream of the party here. This was my idea, Almy; you must allow I am clever, as well as peculiar. There's some one else coming in."
It was a clever idea; Madam Flynt was giving a party for Kitty and me; it was so kind of her to tuck me in! Of course everybody was going, and as it was a snowy evening in early April, Kitty and John Tucker were engaged ten deep, to transport the guests. It was necessary to begin early, and at Miss Johanna's suggestion, Kitty had asked a few special friends to be ready half an hour before the time set in the invitations. These favored ones were brought to Ross House, and deposited with instructions to walk right in (Sarepta was at Madam Flynt's, of course, helping Sarah and Abby Ann) and make Aunt Johanna a call, and then make themselves comfy in the parlor till called for.
Mr. Bygood was the only gentleman who went upstairs, but the Chanters and several other parties of ladies rustled up to the Red Indian room and were passed in review by the invalid Arbitress. Last of all came Kitty herself; first rosy and breathless, in fur coat and cap, to summon Miss Johanna's last caller; then, half an hour later, still rosy, but calm and demure, to show herself to her aunt. I was with her, in what male writers call "something white and filmy"; I called it chiffon; Miss Johanna had forbidden filminess for Kitty.
"When you've got lines, show 'em!" was her dictum. How different from Miss Egeria, who was always troubled if one sat down without shaking out one's skirts thoroughly. "My dear!" she would whisper. "You show your shape!"
Kitty had rummaged the ancestral trunks in the attic and had found a thick, heavy pale green satin, over which Miss Johanna had waved the scissors of a necromancer, Miss Anne Peace, as her attendant sprite (dear, meek little brown sprite! she was at Madam Flynt's, too, "taking off" for the ladies upstairs), translating her magic into terms of needle and thread. The soft gleaming fabric clung round as lovely a figure, I thought, as ever entered a ballroom. There was just enough lace at the neck, not an inch too much: wonderful Rose Point. The Bygoods were not the only people who had lace, Miss Johanna said with a friendly sniff: and there was the Beryl Necklace, for which, the same lady pointed out, the satin had probably been woven and dyed. Certainly they were an astonishing match, and anything more beautiful than the combination of necklace and gown and Kitty cannot possibly be imagined. This is not just my enthusiasm—everybody said the same thing—except Miss Johanna; but her nod, and "H'm! you'll do!" was fully as emphatic.