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Page 53
By the following evening her preparations were so far complete that she
could take the evening train for Baltimore, announcing that the two
future occupants of the little house would return within forty-eight
hours. During her absence the three women who were her friends put their
heads together, ordered extra baking and brewing done in their own
kitchens, and ended by stocking her small shelves with a great array
of good things.
Before the forty-eight hours had quite gone by Miss Ruston was leading a
tiny figure, with shoulders held almost as straight as her own, in at the
hedge gate. It was twilight of the August evening. The cottage door was
open and the rays from the lamp lately lighted by her neighbours streamed
down the path.
Charlotte stooped--she had to stoop a long way--and put her lips close to
the small ear under the white hair which lay softly over it. "Doesn't it
look like home, Granny?" she said, in a peculiar, clear tone, a little
raised.
"What say, dear?" responded a low and quite toneless voice--the voice of
the very deaf.
"Home, Granny?" repeated the younger voice. The strong arm of the taller
figure came about the little shoulders in the small gray travelling coat.
"Warm? Not so warm as it was on the train. I shall be quite comfortable
once I am sitting quietly in my chair."
Doctor and Mrs. Burns, following the travellers with certain pieces of
hand luggage, looked at one another.
"Bless her small heart, is she as deaf as that?" queried Red Pepper, in a
whisper. "I shall have difficulty in getting my adoration over to her!"
"She has grown much deafer since I knew her, several years ago," Ellen
explained. "But as her eyes seem bright as ever I imagine you will have
no difficulty in making her understand your adoration. She is used to
it."
"I should think she might be. She is the prettiest old lady I ever saw,
and looks one of the keenest. We shall understand each other, if we have
to write on slates."
Charlotte led Madam Chase--Mrs. Rodney Rutherford Chase was the name
on the visiting cards she still used with scrupulous care for the
observances of etiquette--in at the cottage door and placed her in the
winged chair. She untied and removed a microscopic bonnet, drew off the
gray coat, and laid an inquiring finger on her charge's wrist.
"Let me attend to that," begged R.P. Burns, looming in the small doorway.
"I'll find out how tired she is. I doubt if she would admit it by word
of mouth."
He went down on one knee beside the chair, a procedure which brought his
smiling face beside the old lady's questioning one. His fingers clasped
her wrist, and held it after he had found out what it told him.
"Tired?" he said, very distinctly, his lips forming the word for her to
see.
Madam Chase shook her head decidedly. "Not at all, Doctor. But the train
was very warm and very dusty. I shall be glad to feel a cool linen pillow
under my head instead of a hot cotton one."
He nodded. "Could you eat a bit, and drink a cup of tea?"
"What say, Doctor? Tea? Yes, I should be glad of tea. I never like the
decoction they serve upon trains and call tea."
"I'll have it for her in a minute," and Ellen went out into the kitchen.
Burns looked up at Miss Ruston. "As soon as she has had her tea she must
go to bed. She has stood the journey well, but she needs a long rest
after it." Then he looked again at Mrs. Rodney Rutherford Chase. "I can
see you are a very plucky small person," said he, and her nod and smile
in answer showed that at least she caught the indications of a
compliment.
Presently, when she had had her tea, had patted Ellen's hand for bringing
it, and had looked about her a little with observant eyes which showed
pleasure when they rested on certain familiar objects, she laid her white
curls back against the chair and looked up at her granddaughter like a
child who asks to be put to sleep.
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