“Are you sure it is ‘poor Tom’?” asked Miss Rindy.
“I surmise so, but one can’t be sure. He certainly was devoted last summer, and I know Mabel liked him.”
“But not well enough to marry him. Well, she certainly has given us a big surprise. Has she ever mentioned this man to you?”
“Once or twice very casually. I imagine she was quite bowled over early in the game, but was not sure how he felt, and so didn’t want to reveal her interest in him. I’m crazy to see him, aren’t you?”
“I’d like to, yes. I hope he is the right man for her.”
Ellen sighed again. “This puts an end to all our plans for next summer,” she said.
“I warned you, my child, not to count on anything but changes.”
But what changes were in store for them no one could foresee, especially Orinda Crump, who prophesied them. Ellen found her one day, just before Christmas, sitting with her hands in her lap, looking aimlessly out of the window.
“There wasn’t any mail, Cousin Rindy,” Ellen announced. “I looked in our box on my way home from practising.”
“I brought it home,” Miss Rindy told her, “and I wish I had lost it, or that the mail bag had burned up before it reached here or anything that would have spared me from getting that letter.” She pointed tragically to one which she had flung from her.