“Better than that. Ada Winton is coming to visit me at last, as I have so often invited her to do. Her dear Aunt Susan is dead, her home broken up, and there is nothing to keep her from coming to me now while she is so lonely,” Eva cried gladly.
“We will give her a cordial welcome and a happy home”, exclaimed Mrs. Hamilton quickly, adding to herself:
“And perhaps I can find out from Eva’s old friend something about this mysterious lover over whom the poor child is breaking her heart.”
Hearing a carriage stop in front of the house, she glanced out of the window, and exclaimed:
“There are two strange ladies getting out of a carriage and coming in here, Eva. One is young and rather stylish, the other is old and a regular old frump in appearance. She is tall and scraggly-looking, with old maid written all over her face. I wonder where on earth she got that funny bonnet, brown velvet with green plumes nodding all over it. My, what a horrid, rusty-looking brown silk, and that seal plush cape beaded all over. Good Lord, deliver us! And, Eva, as I live, she has two gray corkscrew curls bobbing on either side her cheeks! She must have come out of the ark, or escaped from a lunatic asylum. Oh,” with a little shriek as the doorbell rang, and there was heard a slight altercation in the hall between the manservant and the visitors.
“I tell you we ain’t no strangers, an’ we ain’t gwine ter send in no cards! Me an’ Pat Groves air Eva’s cousins from West Virginia, an’ we air gwine right in the parlor where she is ’ithout no ceremony. Come along, Patty, don’t look so skeered, gal. I’ll stand by ye, an’ nothin’ can’t hurt ye. You air as rich an’ grand as she is sence Grandfather Groves struck ile an’ made you a nairess!” proclaimed a shrill, confident voice, and pushing back the heavy portières Miss Tabitha Ruttencutter stood revealed in all her glory, clutching the more timorous Patty, fairly dragging the handsome, over-dressed girl into the drawing-room.
They had been in New York several weeks trying to get into “sassiety,” as Miss Tabby called it, and they believed their best chance lay in conciliating Eva, hence the present call, both agreeing that even if the outraged girl turned them out of doors they should at least know what her house looked like inside, and could brag about its splendors to admiring friends when they returned home.
“How do, little Eva,” exclaimed Miss Tabby, with hoarse cordiality in her high, rasping voice. “Ain’t forgot me an’ your cousin Patty Groves, I hope, sence you moved away. We seen it in the papers about your dretful accident, an’ come to make a sympathizing visit with you, lettin’ bygones be bygones, an’ no more hard feelings ’twixt us!”
CHAPTER XXIX.
A DESERVED REPULSE.