Lucia rushed over to welcome Ruth back and the girls at school listened eagerly to her tales of her French governess and of her life in the city.
"I don't see how you could give up all that," said some of them.
Although Miss Hester tried to keep the affair of the receipt a secret, it was generally known that Simon Petty had behaved very badly and had tried to cheat Miss Hester out of all her patrimony. Nora, knowing this, tried to keep out of Ruth's way, but, after her grandfather's death, the family left town.
It was one bright beautiful spring morning that the little brown house was deserted and Miss Hester set up her belongings again in the house across the street. Birds were singing in the tall trees on the lawn. Vines were in leaf and flowers blossomed in the borders.
"Isn't it a dear home?" said Ruth as she stood with Miss Hester on the porch looking around them. "It's yours forever now, isn't it, Aunt Hester?"
"Yes, dearie, and it will be yours, too, as long as you live."
"I think Hetty would like to go with me to see what Billy is doing," said Ruth going into the house and bringing out her doll. "Shouldn't you think she would feel very much at home, Aunt Hester, when she lived here so long ago? She told me last night that it did seem good to get back again. I wonder if she misses my dear Henrietta. Do you miss your Henrietta, your little sister, Aunt Hester?"
"I should miss her much more if I didn't have my little Ruth," returned Miss Hester. "You take her place, dear child, better than any one else could do."
Ruth smiled up at her. Then she walked down the broad path and around the house to where she heard Billy whistling cheerily.
"It's great, ain't it?" said Billy as she came up. "Aunt Hester says I can keep chickens and I'm makin' a coop for a hen I'm goin' to get from Fred Felton. I'm goin' to do some work for him to pay for it. He's no good doin' anything with tools and I told him I'd help him out and take my pay in stock. I'm goin' to try to get some eggs that way, too, and I'll set my hen and have some chickens, then I'll get other chickens. This is a fine place to keep them, there's so much room they can have a chicken yard and they won't get out to scratch up the flowers. Maybe if I am lucky with my chickens, I can save enough money to do somethin' worthwhile after a time."