"Bless your heart, no indeedy!" replied Miss Jinny emphatically. "I'd rather keep them a week than to have you slight Elinor. We'll have time to take the edge off our tongues, anyhow, before she gets here, and get more settled down, I hope. I haven't felt so flighty in a blue moon, and it's all your fault, Patricia Louise Kendall, with your tales about theaters and parties and the like! We'll have to put a muzzle on her, won't we, Judith?--like poor old Nero after he nipped Georgie Smith when Georgie tried to make him walk the tight rope."
"Oh, do tell me about it," said Judith eagerly, settling down on a low stool beside the trunk. "Your stories are always so nice and nippy."
Miss Jinny laughed, as she shook out a creased skirt, and laid it carefully in the long lower drawer.
"I reckon most of the nippiness in this tale is Nero's work--not mine," she said, smoothing the long folds of gray lansdown into shape with absent fingers. "You see, it was this way. Old Miss Fell, who lives in that big red brick house----"
"Yes, I know," said Judith, expectantly, but Miss Jinny had whisked to her feet and whirled about towards the door.
"I saw you in the looking glass!" she cried gleefully. "You needn't think you can surprise us, young lady!"
She had Elinor in her arms, to everyone's great amazement, and Elinor, far from being reluctant, was as responsive as though Miss Jinny were her own mother.
"Oh, you're just in time!" she cried, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining with a great light of happiness. "You were Aunt Louise's best friend here, and you'll know just how she'd feel. I got my criticism!" She paused, choking with emotion. "He came up behind me, and he stood there so long I was afraid to go on working; and when I stopped, he spoke out loud, twisting his moustache and popping off his eye-glasses."
"What did he say?" burst out Patricia, unable to bear the suspense. "Don't beat around the bush so long, for pity's sake, Norn!"
"He spoke so loud I was ashamed," went on Elinor. "He sort of bawled it out. '_Remarkable_ talent, madame, remarkable talent.' And everybody turned around and looked at me till I felt like sinking through the floor."
"How perfectly heavenly!" exclaimed Patricia, with rapture. "I wish I'd been there to hear it."