The door closed on a shriek. "I scrouged her toe _good_!" Sarepta told Madam Flynt that night. "She bellered right out, and I was glad." Perhaps the most complete summing up of the situation was given that evening by Miss Almeria Bygood as she sat with her sister over nine o'clock supper, that pleasant meal that still lingers in blessed Cyrus, where we dine at half-past twelve and sup at five or six. Molly had brought in the tray and drawn up the little round table between the two ladies as they sat with their feet on the embroidered fender-stool. (There was no fire, but they always sat there in the evening.) Pretty Molly, crisp and trim in her light print dress! Miss Bygoods did not hold with putting maids in black, especially young maids. "Why should they be made to ape the semblance of sorrow?" Miss Almeria asked with dignity. "We trust our service is not so arduous as to cause them the reality!" They were talking of the duke, of course, over their cocoa and sponge drops: who, save Kitty and John Tucker, talked of anything else in this week of the Tribulations of Cyrus? They wondered, hoped, feared, wondered again. Would they lose their Kitty, the rose and jewel of their little world? Would this great nobleman carry her off, if not on his horse (Miss Egeria knew nothing of strong men from the north!) at least in his coach and six? Thus Miss Egeria, trembling, romantic. Surely not, Miss Almeria replied gravely. A sense of propriety would assuredly not be wanting in a person of such lofty position. At the same time, it was most unfortunate that Johanna and Edward were absent. "Most unfortunate!" Miss Egeria sighed. "Not only for the--the suitability of it, of course, in every way, but--well, Sister, Johanna has such an air, such knowledge of the world; and Edward is such an elegant man! I am sure the duke would not anywhere meet finer manners, and we would wish him to see Cyrus at its best!" "Dear Sister!" Miss Almeria laid her slender hand, with its antique but costly rings, gently on Miss Egeria's cashmere sleeve; "have no fears on _that_ score! there at least, if nowhere else, we may feel secure. In matters of courtesy and breeding--with one or two exceptions----" Miss Almeria closed her eyes; "Cyrus is _always_ at its best!" CHAPTER XXII THE DUKE OF LEE