“Why, she must be rather horrid, I think,” commented Phyllis, with more heartfelt reason than Aunt Sally could guess!
“No, I don’t think she means to be horrid—she’s just been brought up that way, I guess. I wish she could be more friendly. I sort of feel a responsibility about her. You see, she’s here all alone. She was staying at the hotel with her grandfather, and he suddenly took awful sick and had to be taken to the hospital up at Branchville. She stayed on at the hotel so’s to be near him (she runs up there every day in her car), and then the hotel had to close down for the season. The manager come to me and asked me if I could take her in, ’cause he was kind of sorry for her, her grandfather bein’ so ill, an’ she couldn’t seem to find no other place. So I did, but she worries me a lot, somehow. I don’t like to see a young girl like that with no one to look after her, and she running around loose in that auto all the time. Why, she even took it out one rainy night last week at ten o’clock. Said she was worried about her grandfather, but I didn’t approve of her running all the way up there to Branchville in the rain.”
Here Phyllis glanced significantly at Leslie and interjected a question. “Did she and her grandfather have one of the bungalows on the beach this summer, do you know, Aunt Sally?”
“Why, not that I know of. She said she’d been visiting some friends somewhere in Maine, and then come on here to join her grandfather just a few days before he was taken sick. I don’t think it likely she ever stayed in one of the bungalows. She didn’t seem to know anything about this region at first. And I’d likely have heard of it if she had. But, laws! I got biscuits in the oven and I’m clean forgetting them!” And with a whisk of skirts, Aunt Sally vanished for a moment into the kitchen.
“What did I tell you!” whispered Leslie. “Went out in the rain one night last week about ten o’clock! I warrant she didn’t go to the hospital, or, if she did, it was after she’d visited Curlew’s Nest!”
But Aunt Sally was back almost immediately, bearing some hot biscuits and jam which she hospitably invited her guests to try. And while they were partaking of this refreshment she sighed:
“My, how I have been gossiping about that poor girl! I sort of feel conscience-stricken, for I could like her real well if she’d only let me. She’s a sort of lovable-looking child! I wish she knew you two girls. I believe it would do her a lot of good to be around with you. There she is now!”—she cried, as a car flashed past the window and up the driveway toward the barn. “Just wait till she comes in and I’ll introduce you—”
“No, no!” exclaimed Phyllis, hastily springing up. “Better not, Aunt Sally. If she doesn’t care for you, I’m sure she wouldn’t for us. Besides, we must go right away. Remember, we’re both the cooks in our families, and even as it is, we won’t be back very early. It’s a long walk. Good-by, and thank you, and I’ll send for the broilers to-morrow!” And with Leslie in tow, she hurried away, leaving a somewhat bewildered Aunt Sally gazing after them.
“Well, I guess not! The idea of trying to get acquainted a second time with that difficult young person!” Phyllis exploded, when they were out of ear-shot.
“And yet,” mused Leslie as they swung along, “unpleasant as the thought of it is, I wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea—to get acquainted?”