Mrs. Cyrus was so moved by Miss North's active mission-work that the very next day she wandered across the street to call. “I hope I'm not interrupting you,” she began, “but I thought I'd just--”
“Yes; you are,” said Miss North; “but never mind; stay, if you want to.” She tried to smile, but she looked at the duster which she had put down upon Mrs. Cyrus's entrance.
Gussie wavered as to whether to take offence, but decided not to;--at least not until she could make the remark which was buzzing in her small mind. It seemed strange, she said, that Mrs. North should come, not only to Old Chester, but right across the street from Captain Price!
“_Why_?” said Mrs. Cyrus, with faint animation. “Why, don't you know about your mother and my father-in-law?”
“Why, you know,” said Mrs. Cyrus, with her light cackle, “your mother was a little romantic when she was young. No doubt she has conquered it now. But she tried to elope with my father-in-law.”
“Oh, bygones should be bygones,” Mrs. Cyrus said, soothingly; “forgive and forget, you know. If there's anything I can do to assist you, ma'am, I'll send my husband over;” and then she lounged away, leaving poor Mary North silent with indignation. But that night at tea Gussie said that she thought strong-minded ladies were very unladylike; “they say she's strong-minded,” she added, languidly.
“Lady!” said the Captain. “She's a man-o'-war's man in petticoats.”
“She's as thin as a lath,” the Captain declared; “if it hadn't been for her face, I wouldn't have known whether she was coming bow or stern on.”
“I think,” said Mrs. Cyrus, “that that woman has some motive in bringing her mother back here; and _right across the street_, too!”
But Augusta waited for conjugal privacy to explain herself: “Cyrus, I worry so, because I'm sure that woman thinks she can catch your father again.--Oh, just listen to that harmonicon downstairs! It sets my teeth on edge!”
Then Cyrus, the silent, servile first mate, broke out: “Gussie, you're a fool!”
And Augusta cried all night, and showed herself at the breakfast-table lantern-jawed and sunken-eyed; and her father-in-law judged it wise to sprinkle his cigar ashes behind the stable.
The day that Mrs. North arrived in Old Chester, Mrs. Cyrus commanded the situation; she saw the daughter get out of the stage, and hurry into the house for a chair so that the mother might descend more easily. She also saw a little, white-haired old lady take that opportunity to leap nimbly, and quite unaided, from the swinging step.