CHAPTER XIV

JOHANNA REDIVIVA

Miss Johanna did not go back to bed. She had had six months of rest, she said, and that was enough.

"Besides," she added, "I must show myself for poor Russell's sake. I can't have people saying that he ruined my health for life, as well as destroyed my reason."

She spoke frankly to Kitty, as they sat together on the leather sofa, the evening after the funeral.

"That was why I went away!" said Miss Johanna. "We were very much in love with each other, but it was no use. He couldn't keep straight; and I am not a fool, Kitty. He wouldn't give me up, so I went away. Wrongly, your little mother thought; John knew I was right. So there is all about that!" Thus Miss Johanna, very erect on the sofa. Kitty, moving close beside her, put her arm round her and laid her fair head against her shoulder.

"Thank you, my dear! yes, it was hard; almost as hard to have Mary disapprove of me as to lose him." Miss Johanna brushed away a tear, and frowned at the spot on her handkerchief.

"She asked me--little romantic goose of a white rose!--if I thought she would leave John if _he_----'My child,' I said, 'John would leave you! John would allow nothing of that kind to come within sight or sound of you. If he found he _had_ to drink, he would go and drink in the Mammoth Cave, and drop the bottles into the bottomless pit.' It was true!

"But mind you, Kitty!" Miss Johanna spoke incisively, after a silence, during which both had gazed into the fire with tear-bright eyes. "You must not think I have mourned for twenty years. People don't do that, not even women. I mourned for a good while, as long as was reasonable; perhaps longer. Otherwise, I have been a busy and on the whole a contented woman. Why shouldn't I be? I have friends all over the country; I have had many pleasures; now, thanks to you, my dear child, I have a home, the home of my own childhood. Considering humanity in the aggregate, I have done extremely well. Extremely well! A single woman can be happy enough, Kitty," Miss Johanna did not look at her niece as she spoke, "happy enough if she has _sense_. I have known spinsters who had twice as many children as if they had borne 'em; and I've known mothers, dozens of 'em, with hearts and arms as empty as their heads. And if Sarepta Darwin wants anything," added Miss Johanna, "I'll thank her to put a name to it, instead of clucking and scuttling out there in the hall."

Sarepta appeared, and fixed the speaker with a wintry eye. "_I_ don't want anything!" she said austerely. "I was comin' to ask whether _you_ wanted any supper; that's all. Bell rang ten minutes ago; don't make no odds to me whether it's hot or cold."

It did make odds to Miss Johanna, however, that Sarepta had prepared for supper all her little favorite delicacies, down to the dash of cinnamon on the buttered toast, with which she usually "couldn't bother." Late that evening, when Kitty was in bed, the stately lady crept down the back stairs to the kitchen, and had a comfortable little cry with her old grammar-school mate, who in her grim fashion had worshiped Russell Gaylord ever since, at the age of twelve, he gave her a bite of his apple.

The next thing, Miss Johanna announced, was the Visits. People had left cards for her when she came: sympathetic cards, inquisitive cards, scandalized cards, as the case might be. Now, for the sake of things in general (and Kitty in particular, it may be confessed between author and reader), Miss Johanna determined to "make her manners," and prove her sanity of mind and body. These were exciting days for Cyrus. One hardly dared leave the house for fear of missing The Call.

"Has she been to see you? She has? Well! how did she appear? Was she flighty, or what you would call reasonable? Stylish? Well, you would expect that! she was always one to dress. What did she----oh! broadcloth! Well! that is always ladylike. They claim basket-weaves are all the style now, but I don't know. Anyhow, it's something for her to be in her right mind."

Mrs. Wibird was openly disturbed about the influence that Johanna was likely to exert over Kitty.

"While she was in her bed," said the lady, "it was another matter; but now, the two of them together, and like that, it's my _fear_ we shall see things that we are not used to them in Cyrus."

Melissa was on fire instantly.

"I don't know what you mean, Mother! What kind of things?"

"No, you don't know, my child;" Mrs. Wibird shook a melancholy head over the bowl in which she was mixing gingerbread. "You don't know, and it is far from my wish that you should." (N. B. The good lady had no idea herself what she meant, but Lissy shouldn't speak back like that.) "I say nothing; nothing at all! I never do say anything, as is well known. But take the way Kitty Ross drives, which is in itself a scandal, be the other who it may; and add to it a person who has _always_ been peculiar, and now little better than a lunatic, if all one hears--hand me the spice-box, will you, Lissy? You've kned that dough enough; you'll take the courage all out of it--all I say is, I _hope_ Cyrus will not rue the day that either one of them--My _gracious_, Lissy! they're driving up to the door this minute! Here, take my apron! No! You go to the door--no, I'll go to the door and keep 'em back while you pull up the parlor curt----

"_Johanna_ Ross! do not tell me this is you! well! well! well! you _are_ a stranger! Kitty comin' in? No! the wild animal wouldn't stand, of course. Terrible!" as Kitty and Pilot whisked round the corner. "I expect to see her dashed in fragments any day: _any_ day! My son Wilson nearly met his death the night of Madam Flynt's party. Well, if this isn't a sight for sore eyes. Come in! Come _right_ in, Johanna! I never thought to be welcoming you into my humble sitting-room in _this_ world!"

The Misses Bygood had made fitting preparations to receive their old friend and schoolmate. The covers were taken off Aunt Messenger's Chair (embroidered by that lady seventy-five years ago, and as fresh as the day it was finished, owing to the covers; there were three, one basted, one tied, and the third buttoned on); the tidies and the frilled tassel-bags were done up--I met some one the other day who had never heard of a tassel-bag!--an extra touch given to the shining silver and crystal. And after all this, Miss Johanna made her call in the shop! One might have known she would! Miss Almeria reflected; there was a shade of austerity on her smooth brow as she advanced to greet her guest. Miss Johanna was buoyant.

"Howdy? howdy?" she cried. "Second call, you see, Almy! First call on Madam Flynt, second on Miss Bygoods: Proprieties of Cyrus, volume I,