Uncle Jethro!" cried Cynthia, "you're trying to get out of it. You remember you promised to meet us in Washington."
"Guess he'll keep this app'intment," said Ephraim, who seemed to be full of a strange mirth that bubbled over, for he actually winked at Jethro. went first to Faneuil Hall. Presently they found themselves among the crowd in Washington Street, where Ephraim confessed the trepidation which he felt over the coming supper party: a trepidation greater, so he declared many times, than he had ever experienced before any of his battles in the war. He stopped once or twice in the eddy of the crowd to glance up at the numbers; and finally came to a halt before the windows of a large dry-goods store.
"I guess I ought to buy a new shirt for this occasion, Cynthy," he said, staring hard at the articles of apparel displayed there: "Let's go in."
Cynthia laughed outright, since Ephraim could not by any chance have worn any of the articles in question.
"Why, Cousin Ephraim," she exclaimed, "you can't buy gentlemen's things here."
"Oh, I guess you can," said Ephraim, and hobbled confidently in at the doorway. There we will leave him for a while conversing in an undertone with a floor-walker, and follow Jethro. He, curiously enough, had some fifteen minutes before gone in at the same doorway, questioned the same floor-walker, and he found himself in due time walking amongst a bewildering lot of models on the third floor, followed by a giggling saleswoman.
"What kind of a dress do you want, sir?" asked the saleslady,--for we are impelled to call her so.
"S-silk cloth," said Jethro.
"What shades of silk would you like, sir?"
"Shades? shades? What do you mean by shades?"
"Why, colors," said the saleslady, giggling openly.
"Green," said Jethro, with considerable emphasis.
The saleslady clapped her hand over her mouth and led the way to another model.
"You don't call that green--do you? That's not green enough."
They inspected another dress, and then another and another,--not all of them were green,--Jethro expressing very decided if not expert views on each of them. At last he paused before two models at the far end of the room, passing his hand repeatedly over each as he had done so often with the cattle of Coniston.
"These two pieces same kind of goods?" he demanded.
"Yes."
"Er-this one is a little shinier than that one?"
"Perhaps the finish is a little higher," ventured the saleslady.
"Sh-shinier," said Jethro.
"Yes, shinier, if you please to call it so."
"W-what would you call it?"
By this time the saleslady had become quite hysterical, and altogether incapable of performing her duties. Jethro looked at her for a moment in disgust, and in his predicament cast around for another to wait on him. There was no lack of these, at a safe distance, but they all seemed to be affected by the same mania. Jethro's eye alighted upon the back of another customer. She was, apparently, a respectable-looking lady of uncertain age, and her own attention was so firmly fixed in the contemplation of a model that she had not remarked the merriment about her, nor its cause. She did not see Jethro, either, as he strode across to her. Indeed, her first intimation of his presence was a dig in her arm. The lady turned, gave a gasp of amazement at the figure confronting her, and proceeded to annihilate it with an eye that few women possess.
"H-how do, Ma'am," he said. Had he known anything about the appearance of women in general, he might have realized that he had struck a tartar. This lady was at least sixty-five, and probably unmarried. Her face, though not at all unpleasant, was a study in character-development: she wore ringlets, a peculiar bonnet of a bygone age, and her clothes had certain eccentricities which, for, lack of knowledge, must be omitted. In short, the lady was no fool, and not being one she glanced at the giggling group of saleswomen and--wonderful to relate--they stopped giggling. Then she looked again at Jethro and gave him a smile. One of superiority, no doubt, but still a smile.
"How do you do, sir?"
"T-trying to buy a silk cloth gown for a woman. There's two over here I fancied a little. Er--thought perhaps you'd help me."
"Where are the dresses?" she demanded abruptly.
Jethro led the way in silence until they came to the models. She planted herself in front of them and looked them over swiftly but critically.
"What is the age of the lady?"
"W-what difference does that make?" said Jethro, whose instinct was against committing himself to strangers.
"Difference!" she exclaimed sharply, "it makes a considerable difference. Perhaps not to you, but to the lady. What coloring is she?"
"C-coloring? She's white."
His companion turned her back on him.
"What size is she?"
"A-about that size," said Jethro, pointing to a model.
"About! about!" she ejaculated, and then she faced him. "Now look here, my friend," she said vigorously, "there's something very mysterious about all this. You look like a good man, but you may be a very wicked one for all I know. I've lived long enough to discover that appearances, especially where your sex is concerned, are deceitful. Unless you are willing to tell me who this lady is for whom you are buying silk dresses, and what your relationship is to her, I shall leave you. And mind, no evasions. I can detect the truth pretty well when I hear it."
Unexpected as it was, Jethro gave back a step or two before this onslaught of feminine virtue, and the movement did not tend to raise him in the lady's esteem. He felt that he would rather face General Grant a thousand times than this person. She was, indeed, preparing to sweep away when there came a familiar tap-tap behind them on the bare floor, and he turned to behold Ephraim hobbling toward them with the aid of his green umbrella, Cynthia by his side.
"Why, it's Uncle Jethro," cried Cynthia, looking at him and the lady in astonishment, and then with equal astonishment at the models. "What in the world are you doing here?" Then a light seemed to dawn on her.
"You frauds! So this is what you were whispering about! This is the way Cousin Ephraim buys his shirts!"
"C-Cynthy," said Jethro, apologetically, "d-don't you think you ought to have a nice city dress for that supper party?"
"So you're ashamed of my country clothes, are you?" she asked gayly.
"W-want you to have the best, Cynthy," he replied. "I-I-meant to have it all chose and bought when you come, but I got into a kind of argument with this lady."
"Argument!" exclaimed the lady. But she did not seem displeased. She had been staring very fixedly at Cynthia. "My dear," she continued kindly, "you look like some one I used to know a long, long time ago, and I'll be glad to help you. Your uncle may be sensible enough in other matters, but I tell him frankly he is out of place here. Let him go away and sit down somewhere with the other gentleman, and we'll get the dress between us, if he'll tell us how much to pay."
"P-pay anything, so's you get it," said Jethro.
"Uncle Jethro, do you really want it so much?"
It must