“Won’t you be seated? Take this more comfortable chair,” said little Mrs. Payne.
“The weather’s been fine lately,” remarked the deacon.
“A fine summer, indeed, for the crops,” agreed Miss Sarah; “the tobacco’s doing splendidly in the valley.”
There came another rap on the door and Mrs. Snow was admitted.
“I thought I’d run in just a moment to see if you had that mantle pattern,” she said.
Mrs. Butler, stiff with rheumatism, came next. A knock was heard at the back door and I heard her heavy breathing and her “Well, Ellen, I just ran over to return your mother’s hoe that Alec left at my house when he hoed my potatoes for me, but why he can’t take back the tools himself I can’t see. Has your mother got company; invited company, I mean?—because, Land Sakes! I can hear she’s got company. I’m not deaf.”
The question that they all longed to ask lay heavy in the air. It was good and bona-fide gossip that they had heard as coming direct from Mr. Sylvester himself, but so afraid is New England of making a mistake and of committing itself, that two other ladies had dropped in on an errand of one sort or another, or for calls, before Miss Sarah took advantage of a little pause in the conversation to remark:—
“I suppose every one of you here has come to find out if my sister is to marry Mr. Sylvester.”
There was a little, fluttering chorus of dissent.
“Nonsense,” said Miss Sarah, “I know what you wish to ask and what a bushel more will come to ask before the evening is over, and that’s why I’m staying here; and tell every one that you meet that we shall be happy to tell them ourselves that such, indeed, is the happy fact.”