uch a waiting as few
of my inexperience have ever been called upon to endure, I turned to a
group of ladies I saw near me and began to talk.

Happily, I did not have to chatter long; happily, Mrs. Ransome was quick
in her movements and exact in all she did, and, sooner than I expected,
sooner, perhaps, than I was prepared for it, the man who attended the
front door came to my side and informed me that a lady wished to see
me--a lady who had just arrived from the steamer, and who said she was
the mistress of the house, Mrs. Ransome.

Mrs. Ransome! The name spread like wildfire, but before any movement was
made, I had bounded, in laughing confusion, to my husband's side, and,
grasping him merrily by the arm, cried:

"Your expectations have come true. Mrs. Ransome has returned without
warning, and tonight she will partake of the supper you have always had
served for her."

The shock was as great, perhaps, as ever man received. I knew what it
was likely to be, and held him upright, with the seeming merriment in my
eyes which I did not allow to stray from his. He thought I was mad, then
he thought he was--then I recalled him to the dangers and exigencies of
the moment by saying, with forced _naivete_: "Shall I go and welcome her
to this gathering in her own house, or will you do the honors? She may
not know _me_."

He moved, but as a statue might move, shot through and through with an
electric spark. I saw that I must act, rather than he, so uttering some
girlish sentence about the mice and cat, I glided away into the hall,
where Mrs. Ran-some stood in the nondescript black cloak and bonnet I
had provided her from her own wardrobe. She had slipped a few moments
before from the house with her daughter, whom she had placed in a
carriage, which I had ordered to wait for them directly in front of the
lamppost, and had now re-entered as the mistress returning unexpectedly
after a departure of five years. All had been done as I had planned, and
it only remained to carry on the farce and prevent its developing into a
tragedy.

Rushing up to her, I told her who I was, and, as we were literally
surrounded in a moment, added such apologies for the merrymaking in
which she found us indulging as my wit suggested and the occasion seemed
to demand. Then I allowed her to speak. Instantly she was the mistress
of the house. Old-fashioned as her dress was, and changed as her figure
must have been, she had that imposing bearing which gr