She ran into the kitchen. “Look, Cousin Rindy, look!” she cried.
Miss Rindy turned from her task of grating cheese. “Well, I declare,” she exclaimed. “They’re nothing but useless weeds, but they’re right pretty after all. You can get a tumbler out of the pantry to put them in.”
Ellen set her bouquet proudly in the center of the table on which Miss Rindy already had deposited a plate of warmed-over rolls, a dish of stewed apples, some plain gingerbread, and the grated cheese. There was a glass of milk for Ellen, tea for herself.
It was a simple meal, but there was enough of it, and Ellen rose from the table satisfied. She helped her cousin with the dishes, and then they sat down together in the parlor. The light from the big kerosene lamp picked out the gleam of the two or three ornately bound books on the marble-topped table, discovered the gilt frames of “A Yard of Roses” and the big chromo where woodeny waves threatened to engulf a tin-like ship.
“Now we’ll talk,” announced Miss Rindy, settling herself in a heavy haircloth-covered rocking-chair. “You will have to be provided with some work to do, Ellen. You can’t sit all the evening just holding your hands in that useless way. I don’t suppose you have anything just now, but you can hold this worsted for me and meantime tell me all about yourself. Of course I know in a general way, but I want more information, if you are going to live with me. You can tell me what you choose, and I will read between the lines.”
CHAPTER II
ELLEN BEGINS TO BE USEFUL
Ellen fixed her eyes on the ruddy isinglass in the doors of the Latrobe. Certain discolorations gave to her fancy strange pictures,—a glowing sunset behind a line of trees, a burning lake beneath a cloudy sky. She wondered if Cousin Rindy ever had noticed them, but she did not ask, for her thoughts went galloping off to the little studio apartment in a big city, her home till three months ago. Now it was stripped of all its furnishings, occupied by strangers, and Ellen would know it no more.
“Go on,” encouraged Miss Rindy after a short silence. “You needn’t tell me where you were born; I know that, and I know when your parents left you. What I want to know is how you lived and all that. You went to school, of course.”
“Oh, yes, I went to school, and I studied music and French at home. Mother and Father generally spoke it at meals. Even when I was quite small I could chatter away rather glibly, for they wouldn’t let me have things at table unless I asked for them in French.”