Miss Clegg stopped and shook her head hard.

“Where have you—­” began Mrs. Lathrop.

“Oh, that reminds me,” said the caller with a sudden start.  She paused a second, as if to gather force for the proper delivery of her next speech; a wondrous glow of unconscious but exalted triumph rose to her visage.  “I went,” she announced, her voice high-keyed with confidence as to what was about to fall upon the totally unprepared placidity of the unsuspecting Mrs. Lathrop,—­“I went to post a letter to Cousin Marion!”

Mrs. Lathrop’s jaw dropped.  A sudden and complete paralysis of all her faculties seemed to be the immediate effect of her friend’s astounding communication.

For a full half-minute there was silence in the kitchen while Susan rocked and enjoyed the sight of the havoc wrought by her speech.

But at last Mrs. Lathrop gathered some fragments out of the wreck of her sensibilities and said feebly,—­

“Why, Susan, I never hear as you had one single—­”

“Nor me, neither,” said the caller,—­and then the sluice-gates opened, and the stream swept through and madly on again,—­“nor me, neither, Mrs. Lathrop.  I never even dreamed o’ any such goin’s on, ‘n’ I c’n assure you ’s the shock ’s come ’s heavy on me ’s on you.  I went up garret this mornin’ ’s innocent ’s a babe whose mother ’s yet unborn, ‘n’ there I found her.”

“In the garret!” cried Mrs. Lathrop.

Miss Clegg drew a long breath.

“In a trunk.  ‘N’ jus’ ’s unexpected ‘s the comin’ o’ Judgment Day.  Mrs. Lathrop, you c’n believe me or not jus’ ’s you please, but I give you my Gospel word of honor as when I turned down the flap o’ a trunk ‘n’ see that old mousey letter stuck in it cornerways, I no more thought o’ findin’ a cousin than I did o’ findin’ a moth, ‘n’ you know how scarce moths is with me; I ain’t so much ’s seen one ’xcept on your side o’ the house in twenty years, I do believe.  ‘N’ I could n’t in conscience say ’s I was pleased when I did see the letter, f’r I thought’s like ’s not it was a bill, ‘n’ anyhow I wa’n’t inclined to be over-pleased at anythin’ this mornin’—­I persume you saw how the minister come in on me?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Lathrop, “I see him.  What—­”

“Wanted to name the baby after me, ‘n’ I call it a pretty time to come namin’ a baby when a woman has got one leg on a ladder ‘n’ her head tied up for bats.  I thought he was the tin-peddler from Meadville, ‘n’ I run f’r my rag-bag, ‘n’ then there it was only the minister after all!  Well, I was n’t pleased a tall, ‘n’ I did n’t ask him in, neither.  I stood fair ‘n’ square in the doorway, ‘n’ ’f he was ‘xpectin’ to see me look happy over havin’ a compliment paid me, ’t was one more time ’s he did n’t get what he ’xpected.  That was what he called it,—­’payin’ me a compliment,’—­’n’ I mus’ say ’s it struck me ‘s pretty high-flown language f’r jus’ simply wantin’ to name a thirteenth baby after the richest woman