The neighbourly throng was at this moment augmented by the appearance of two ladies who fluttered out on the porch of a rose-trellised cottage, like small, proud pouter pigeons. They were the Misses Marion, twin-sisters, quite inseparable, and, because their minds had run in exactly the same groove for all of their lives and because they were of about equal mental readiness, apt to get the same impression at exactly the same time, and apt to attempt expression in exactly the same breath. Occasionally this was trying, both to the Misses Marion and to their hearers, and it was particularly trying when the two now called simultaneously from the rose-embowered porch to the women in the neighbouring yards: "Have you heard----" "Have you heard----" Miss Shelley Marion turned to Miss Blair Marion with delicate courtesy: "Continue, sister," she said, just as Miss Blair said, "Sister, continue." "Have we heard what, for goodness' sake?" snapped one of the would-be hearers, breaking in rawly upon the soft waves of the hand and the imploring taps with which each of the two gentlewomen was endeavouring to make way for the other. "I continued last time, sister." "I think not, Blair; I think I did. Proceed." "Have you heard the news?" Miss Blair having yielded with great self-rebuke to Miss Shelley, the question gurgled liquidly from yard to yard, like a small twisting brook. The two women whose yards adjoined the Misses Marions' yard came down to the separating fences and leaned their arms on the paling rails waitingly; the third woman moved up to the corner of her yard which was nearest the Misses Marion. She was the woman who had deplored missing the hill fires, and there was a resolute look on her face. "Talk loud, Miss Blair," she said commandingly. But before Miss Blair could get her mouth open to talk at all there was the sound of horses' hoofs from up toward Court House Square, and a light vehicle, drawn by two powerful Kentucky blacks, rolled into view. "Lawk, it's Sally Madeira!" cried Miss Blair impulsively, and then looked immediately convicted, for Miss Shelley had got only as far as "Lawk!" When the slender equipage, with its spirited, long-tailed horses, and its high springy seat, with the erect young figure on it, had gone by, the women looked at each other, with pursed lips and knowing eyes. "There, aint I been sayin'," cried the fat one, "she's a-lookin' peaked!" Then somebody noticed that the Misses Marion were in the throes of another spasm of courtesy, and, reminded by that of the critical juncture where Miss Blair had left off a few minutes before, one of the women called to her: "What news was that, Miss Blair? Say, you! Miss Blair! What news?" "Why," said Miss Blair, having finally effected some sort of affectionate compromise with Miss Shelley, "why, these news,--they say that that N'York man _is_ Sally Madeira's sweetheart, tew!"