XIX
DEACON ISRAEL'S SUCCESSOR
IT was a very small meeting, aunt Miranda," began Rebecca, "and the missionary and his wife are lovely people, and they are coming here to stay all night and to-morrow with you. I hope you won't mind."
"Coming here!" exclaimed Miranda, letting her knitting fall in her lap, and taking her spectacles off, as she always did in moments of extreme excitement. "Did they invite themselves?"
"No," Rebecca answered. "I had to invite them for you; but I thought you 'd like to have such interesting company. It was this way"—
"Stop your explaining and tell me first when they 'll be here. Right away?"
"No, not for two hours—about half past five."
"Then you can explain, if you can, who gave you any authority to invite a passel of strangers to stop here over night, when you know we ain't had any company for twenty years, and don't intend to have any for another twenty,—or at any rate while I 'm the head of the house."
"Don't blame her, Miranda, till you've heard her story," said Jane. "It was in my mind right along, if we went to the meeting, some such thing
