Thanks to the information that
you were so good as to give me, I was able to do so."
"Yes, she gave me quite a little description of your visit," said Miss
Birdseye, with a smile and a vague sound in her throat--a sort of
pensive, private reference to the idea of laughter--of which Ransom
never learned the exact significance, though he retained for a long time
afterwards a kindly memory of the old lady's manner at the moment.
"I don't know how much she enjoyed it, but it was an immense pleasure to
me; so great a one that, as you see, I have come to call upon her
again."
"Then, I presume, she _has_ shaken you?"
"She has shaken me tremendously!" said Ransom, laughing.
"Well, you'll be a great addition," Miss Birdseye returned. "And this
time your visit is also for Miss Chancellor?"
"That depends on whether she will receive me."
"Well, if she knows you are shaken, that will go a great way," said Miss
Birdseye, a little musingly, as if even to her unsophisticated mind it
had been manifested that one's relations with Miss Chancellor might be
ticklish. "But she can't receive you now--can she?--because she's out.
She has gone to the post office for the Boston letters, and they get so
many every day that she had to take Verena with her to help her carry
them home. One of them wanted to stay with me, because Doctor Prance has
gone fishing, but I said I presumed I could be left alone for about
seven minutes. I know how they love to be together; it seems as if one
_couldn't_ go out without the other.
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