Presently Franklin reappeared.

"Mrs. Prescott," said he.




CHAPTER IV


That there should have been in the uncommon-tall young woman of buxom
stateliness and prepossessing features, attired (to the mere masculine
eye) in quite elegant black raiment--a thing called, I think, a picture
hat, broad-brimmed with a sweeping ostrich feather, tickled my especial
fancy, but was afterwards reviled by my wife as being entirely unsuited
to fresh widowhood--what there should have been in this remarkable
Junoesque young person who followed on the heels of Franklin to strike
terror into Jaffery's soul, I could not, for the life of me, imagine. In
the light of her personality I thought Barbara's _coup de théâtre_
rather cruel. . . . Of course Barbara received her courteously. She,
too, was surprised at her outward aspect, having expected to behold a
fantastic personage of comic opera.

"I am very pleased to see you, Mrs. Prescott."

Liosha--I must call her that from the start, for she exists to me as
Liosha and as nothing else--shook hands with Barbara, making a queer
deep formal bow, and turned her calm, brown eyes on Jaffery. There was
just a little quarter-second of silence, during which we all wondered in
what kind of outlandish tongue she would address him. To our gasping