CHAPTER XXVI
"HAME'S BEST"
Lancaster County never before looked so fertile, so lovely, as it did that April day when Phœbe returned to it after a long winter in Philadelphia.
As she came unexpectedly there was no one to meet her at Greenwald. She started across the street and was soon on the dusty road leading to the gray farmhouse.
"Let me see," she thought, "this is Friday afternoon and Aunt Maria will be scrubbing the kitchen floor."
But when the girl reached the kitchen of the gray house and tiptoed gently over the sill she found the big room in order and Aunt Maria absent.
"Why," she thought, "is Aunt Maria sick?" She opened the door to the sitting-room and there, seated by a window, was Aunt Maria with a ball of gray wool in her lap and five steel knitting needles plying in her hands.
"Aunt Maria!"
"Why, Phœbe!"