The old maid jumped up, arter she'd larfed herself into a caniption fit, and out on it agin--and she run into the back room where the gals were. It warn't more than a minit before there was in there sich a pow-wow and rumpus kicked up,--the gals begun to hop about like parched corn on a hot shovel. They sot up sich a giggle and tee-heeing, that I couldn't a stood it one minit longer. But all tu once I heard somebody say, "My gracious, it's Mr. Jonathan Slick, from our parts!" At that they all choked in, and were as still as mice in a flour bin. I looked to the glass door, and there stood Susan Reed, a holding back the curtain with one hand and peaking through a square of glass to be sartin it was me. I tell you what, but the gal looked like a picter, and a darned purty picter tu, as she stood a holding back the heap of red cloth in her dark colored calico dress, and black silk apron that made her neck and face look as white as a lily. The rosy cheeks that she used to have in Weathersfield were all gone, and her eyes seemed as if they'd grown larger than they ever were before. I don't know when I've seen a gal that has took my notion as she did while she was a standing in that door. Arter a minit I see her fling her head back till the long shiney curls streamed in heaps over her shoulder, and I heard her say,-- "Oh, let me go out!--I'm sure it's him." "What of that?" I heard the old maid squeak out, as sour as vinegar; "he aint no relation, is he?" "No, no," sez Susan, a droppin the curtain, and a speaking as if her heart was brim full and a running over; "but he come from Weathersfield,--we went to school together; he come from _home_,--I must speak to him!" With that she opened the door and come towards me, a holding out her hand and a trying to smile; but the tears were a standing in her great blue eyes, and I raly thought she was a going to bust right out a crying. I knew she was a thinking about the old humstead, and when I remembered how them darned lawyers cheated her old mother out of house and hum, I felt so bad I could a cried tu, jest as well as not. I went right up and shook hands, and sez I-- "How do you du, Susan? I swanny! but the sight of you is good for sore eyes; it raly seems like old times, only jest to look at you." She kinder smiled a leetle, and sez she, "How are all the folks in Weathersfield?" "Oh, they were all so as to be crawling about when I come away," sez I. "Sally Sikes has got married, I s'pose you know." "And how is cousin Judy?" sez she. "Purty well, considerin," sez I; and you can't think how all-overish I felt to hear any body speak of Judy so fur from hum. I was jest a going to say something to keep her from asking anything more about the gal, when the old maid she come out, and sez she-- "Miss Reed, I don't hire you to talk with young fellers in the front shop."