The Southerner dropped her chin and looked upward in the pose of a seer; no one noticed Mrs. Clymer's sudden movement or the ripple of quick emotion in Mrs. Curtis' face. "That's easy," she responded. "I see a slim girl with dark hair walking with another girl who answers to the name of Elsa. The dark-haired girl gives her a letter, stamped, but not addressed. She has sent a letter to her friend, which has not reached her. Letters sometimes do not reach people who are hurrying through Egypt or—or other places. This letter she gives to Elsa, who is to marry the cousin of an acquaintance of the friend. She is to post it—voilà tout!"
"She was engaged to Bertha Miller's cousin; and she did try awfully hard to be intimate with Constance," whispered Mrs. Clymer in the hostess' ear; while everybody laughed again.
"He drinks like a fish," returned the hostess irrelevantly.
"Oh, Mrs. Atherton, don't stop, tell us more," begged the youngest member. "I feel so interested in Nannie. Has she any children?" The youngest member had just acquired the most remarkable baby in the world.
"I reckon," jested the Southerner, "two or three. Two boys, let us say—"
"How nice!" cried Mrs. Curtis, coloring prettily. "I have two boys."
"And—I think a little girl, whom she has named Constance, Constance Ridgely—Are we going, Mrs. Clymer?"
Mrs. Clymer laid a kindly hand on her shoulder, saying, "Yes, my dear, I must go; but as I am stopping on my way, I shall walk; and Constance will take care of you."
"Thank you, Aunt Kate," said Mrs. Curtis, so low the others—except the Southerner—did not hear. They were alone in the carriage before she made any sign of that which had stirred her profoundly. Then she turned on her companion a pale face and eyes that were swimming in tears.
"Yes, dear," said the Southerner, whose lips were smiling, but whose own eyes were wet.