CHAPTER XXIV.
A day--two days pass.
"More callers," say I, hearing the sound of wheels, and running to the window; "I thought we _must_ have exhausted the neighborhood yesterday and the day before!" I add, sighing.
"_Whoever they are_," says Barbara, anxiously, lifting her head from the work over which it is bent, "mind you do not ask after their relations! Think of the man whose wife you inquired after, and found that she had run away with his groom not a month before!" "That certainly was one of my unlucky things," answer I, gravely; then, beginning to laugh--"and I was so _determined_ to know what had become of her, too." I am still looking out.

It is a soft, smoke-colored day; half an hour ago, there was a shower--each drop a separate loud patter on the sycamore-leaves--but now it is fair again.

A victoria is coming briskly up the drive; servants in dark liveries; a smoke-colored parasol that matches the day.
"Shall I ring, and say 'not at home ?'" asks Barbara, stretching out her hand toward the bell.
"No, no!" cry I, hurriedly, in an altered voice, for the parasol has moved a little aside, and I have seen the face beneath.
In two minutes the butler enters and announces "Mrs.Huntley," and the "plain woman--not very young--about thirty--who cannot be very strong, as she sat down through the Psalms," enters.
At first she seems uncertain _which_ to greet as bride and hostess; indeed, I can see that her earliest impulse is to turn from the small insignificance in silk, to the tall little loveliness in cotton, and as I perceive it, a little arrow--not of jealousy, for, thank God, I never was jealous of our Barbara--never--but of pain at my so palpable inferiority, shoots through all my being.

But Barbara draws back, and our visitor perceives her error.

We sit down, but the brunt of the talk falls on Barbara.