CHARLOTTE AND CHARLOTTE.
I.
People are apt to say, when telling of a surprise, that a feather would have knocked them down. I nearly fell without the feather and without the touch. To see a dead woman standing straight up before me, and to hear her say “How are you, and is the Squire at home?” might have upset the balance of a giant.
But I could not be mistaken. There, waiting at the front-door to come in, her face within an inch of mine, was Nash Caromel’s first wife, Charlotte Tinkle; who for some two years now had been looked upon as dead and buried over in California.
“Is Mr. Todhetley at home!” she repeated. “And can I see him?”
“Yes,” I answered, coming partially out of my bewilderment. “Do you mind staying here just a minute, while I tell him?”
For, to hand in a dead woman, might take him aback, as it had taken me. The pater stood bolt upright, waiting for Mrs. Scott (as he had supposed it to be) to enter.
“It is not Mrs. Scott,” I whispered, shutting the door and going close up to him. “It—it is some one else. I hardly like to tell you, sir; she may give you a fright.”
“Why, what does the lad mean?—what are you making a mystery of now, Johnny?” cried he, staring at me. “Give me a fright! I should like to see any woman give me that. Is it Mrs. Scott, or is it not?”
“It is some one we thought dead, sir.”