Neighbours did call; some from pure friendliness, others to see if “Horace acted set up by his new callin’ and fortune,” and still others, who had been to the Bluffs that afternoon, to tell of the wonders of the festival, their praise or condemnation varying according to age, until Mrs. Bradford was at a loss whether to think the affair a spectacle of fairyland or a vision of the bottomless pit, and Horace was in torment lest he should be appealed to for an opinion, which he was presently.  “What did he think of the tea room?  Was Mrs. Latham painted?  Was she Sylvia’s mother, or step-mother, and if she was the former, didn’t she act dreadful giddy for the mother of grown children?  And didn’t he think Sylvia was just sweet, so different from the rest, and sort of sad, as if she had a step-mother, as people said, and was sat on?” The questioner being the very woman for whom Sylvia had taken such pains in selecting the bouquet of specimen roses, who proved to be the new wife of a neighbour whom Horace had not met.

It seemed to Horace that his mother purposely looked away from him as he tried to pull himself together, and answer nonchalantly that he believed that Mrs. Latham was Sylvia’s own mother, though she did appear very young, and that of course she was acting the part of a Geisha girl, a tea-seller, which would account for her sprightly manner, etc., unconsciously putting what he wished in the place of what he knew, adding with a heartiness that almost made his voice tremble that Miss Sylvia certainly did seem different, and as if she was no kin of her mother’s.

“I guess, then, likely it isn’t her step-mother, but that she’s worried in her mind about her beau,” continued the loquacious woman, pleased at having such a large audience for her news.  “I heard some folks say,—­when I was waitin’ about for my cream, and havin’ a good look at all the millionnaires, which they didn’t mind, but seemed to expect, the same bein’ fair enough, seein’ as it’s what I paid to go in for,—­that the man they call Mr. Bell, that’s been hangin’ around the Bluffs since spring, is courtin’ her steady, but she can’t seem to make up her mind.  Thinks I to myself, I don’t wonder, for I’ve had a good look at him, and he’s well over forty, and though he dresses fine, from his eyes I wouldn’t trust him, if he was a pedler, even to weigh out my rags and change ’em for tin, without I’d shook the scales well first.  The same folks was sayin’ that he’s a grass widower, anyway, and I shouldn’t think her folks would put up with that, fixed as they be, yet they do say,” and here her voice dropped mysteriously, “that Mrs. Latham’s a kind of grass widder herself, for her husband hasn’t turned up in all the year she’s been here, and nobody’s so much as seen his name to a check.”

At this point Mrs. Bradford made an effort to turn the conversation into other channels; for friendly as she always was with her neighbours of all degrees, she never allowed unkind gossip in her house, and only a newcomer would have ventured upon it.  As it was, the loquacious one felt the rebuke in the air, and made hasty adieus on the plea of having to set bread, leaving the rest to talk to their host of themselves, their pleasure at his return, and the local interests of Pine Ridge.