s hailed from the
front door by a person not one of the party of the preceding evening,
and very unlike either of them. It was a lady, not young, of somewhat
small figure, trim, and nicely dressed. Indeed she was rather
handsomely dressed and in somewhat French taste; she had showy gold
earrings in her ears, and a head much more in the mode than either Mrs.
Derrick's or her daughter's. The face of this lady was plain,
decidedly; but redeemed by a look of sense and shrewdness altogether
unmixed with ill nature. The voice spoke alert and pleasantly.

"So Lucindy, you had company last night, didn't you?"

"May be we did and may be we didn't," said Lucindy, brushing away with
great energy at an imaginary bit of lint at the end of the upper step.
"I do' know but we'd just as good call him one of the family."

"So much at home already? I missed seeing him last night--I couldn't
get home. What's he like, Cindy? and what has he done?"

"Done?" said Cindy--"well he's went out a'most afore I was up. And as
to like, Miss Dilly--just you look at him when he comes in. He looks
some like folks, and yet he don't, neither."

"He's out, is he?"

"Yes," said Cindy, reducing a large family of spiders to temporary
starvation and despair,--"he's out--if he ain't gone in nowheres. Miss
Dilly, if you'll stand just inside the door I can wash the steps just
as well.

"What's the gentleman out so early for? Maybe he's missed some of his
luggage, Cindy."

"Hope he ha'n't got no more--without its lighter," said Cindy.
"However, he carried it upstairs himself, I'm free to confess. I guess
'twarn't for luggage he went out, 'cause he asked about breakfast time,
special."

"If he means to be out till then he'll have a good walk of it."

It wanted five minutes of breakfast time, and Mrs. Derrick--what with
stepping into the kitchen to oversee Cindy, and stepping to the front
window to oversee the street--was warm enough for a cooler morning.

"Faith," she said, referring as usual to her daughter, "Faith--what
shall we do if he don't come?"

"I guess he'll come, mother;--he knows the time. The things won't hurt
much by waiting a little."

As she spoke, the little front gate swung softly to, and the person in
question came leisurely up the steps and into the hall. Then having
just glanced into the parlour, he at once--with a promptitude which
bespoke him too punctual himself to doubt the punctuality of
others--advanced to the dining-room