All through Miss Almeria's address, pronounced with much dignity, Mr. Jordano had been making little bows of admiring approbation. When she paused, he took up the word eagerly. "Applause is doubtless indicated, Miss Almeria. I--a--heartily agree; heartily! A--would it be permissible for me to ask--I am not aware that Miss Ross has visited Cyrus during the years of my sojourn here--" (Mr. Jordano came from Tinkham, but, as every one said, he was not responsible for that, and he came away the very moment he was grown up)--"a--a--in short, are there any items that you would feel at liberty to communicate to the Scribe?" There was a silence. Cyrus loves to talk, but there are some subjects on which it is reserved. Johanna Ross is one of them. All looked at Miss Almeria, who was turning a hem with exquisite nicety. She felt the look and responded, a slight flush rising to her smooth cheek. "Miss Ross is a native of Cyrus," she said, "but has not lived here for many years. Twenty, I think, sister?" "Twenty!" assented Miss Egeria; there was a general confirmatory murmur. "She is a person of marked abilities, and has always felt--I believe--that Cyrus did not afford sufficient scope for these abilities. She has occupied a responsible position in a large establishment--wholesale--in the city of New York. This has absorbed all her time and energies; she has not felt--until now--that Cyrus had any claim upon them. May I trouble you for the eighty cotton, Mr. Mallow?" "Certingly! certingly, Miss Bygood!" Mr. Mallow, in his haste to comply with the request, upset his big basket, and spools, tape, buttons, flew in every direction. How the ladies flew after them! How gracefully Miss Egeria glided in pursuit of the big spool of linen thread! how majestically Miss Almeria bent to capture the flood of buttons that poured into her silken lap! how Mrs. Wibird pounced, and Melissa hopped and fluttered! As for Mr. Jordano, he had an encounter with a skein of darning cotton, and entangled himself with it in a quite unbelievable way, and had to be rescued by Miss Egeria. It was a most exciting incident; they spoke of it for weeks after. Mr. Mallow, meantime, sat with the overturned basket still on his knees, grasping it tight, as if he feared it would follow the rest, and ejaculating, "My! my! I _am_ surprised!" "I make my 'pologies!" he said finally, when the last button had been restored to its place. "I make my 'pologies, ladies! I don't know as I ever did such a thing before. Quite a cat's trophy, I'm sure." Flushed and breathless with agitation and vicarious exertion, the good gentleman took up his work again, but uttered an exclamation of discomfiture. "There! I've unthreaded my needle. Lissy, you know what I say; I'm no dromedary--I would say camel! Thread it for me, will you, dearie?"