Mrs. Gardiner looked pleased as she replied, “How came you to expect me just now?”
“I don’t know. It’s a mesmeric sympathy, I suppose,” replied Emma, smiling, “with which I am endowed. Alice was laughing at me just as you came in, for putting so much faith in my feelings. But you see, Alice,” she said looking at her cousin, “that my impressions are quite worth your anticipations. Alice,” she continued, addressing Mrs. Gardiner, “has been watching the clouds, thinking no one would take pity on us this morning; but I knew better.” And Emma again looked at her cousin with an expression of amusement that Alice, knowing what she meant, could not respond to. Being embarrassed between truth and civility, she made a slight and rather cold reply, which added considerably to Emma’s mirth.
“Is Mrs. Percival at home?” inquired Mrs. Gardiner, presently; and as she spoke, she rather turned to Alice, who replied, —
“Yes, I believe so.”
“No,” said Emma. “Alice, she went out some time ago.”
“It’s an unpleasant day for her to be out,” remarked Mrs. Gardiner, fixing her piercing eyes upon Emma with a very incredulous stare.
“She has gone to see old Mrs. Haight,” replied Emma. “She is quite ill, you know.”
“If she does not return soon, she will be caught in the rain,” pursued Mrs. Gardiner, who had heard the story of “mamma’s having gone to Mrs. Haight’s” too often, to put implicit faith in it; “it was sprinkling as I came in.”
“Is it?” said Emma. “She will probably stay and dine there, then. Mamma has not been there for some time, and so she will probably now ‘make a day on’t.’ ”
Mrs. Gardiner had nothing more to say on the subject; so the conversation turned to other things.