There was a second of silence, in which Nellie evidently waited hopefully for Cousin Penelope to say she would follow her through the hole into the hen-house. But when Cousin Penelope did speak, what she said was:
“Run back to the house now, little girl.”
She spoke in the sort of tone that would make any little girl run away. Nellie ran, no question! But Cousin Penelope stayed. Caroline could almost hear her breathing while she held her own breath and listened.
“Caroline!” That was not a bit like the voice in which Cousin Penelope had spoken to Nellie and it came from a Cousin Penelope who must be kneeling on the ground (Cousin Penelope kneeling!) in order to throw the voice into the hen-house. “Are you in there, dear? Please come out! I understand—I’m not angry with you. We’ve all suffered enough—some of us deserved it.” (Could it be that Cousin Penelope was crying just a little?) “Come out, dear, please! We’ve come to see you, Aunt Eunice and I. You’re not afraid of Aunt Eunice, I know. Oh, don’t be afraid of me any more!”
And Caroline wasn’t afraid of this Cousin Penelope—the Cousin Penelope who had come to her room on the night when it thundered and lightened—the Cousin Penelope who had walked with her on the downs. She crawled out of the hen-house, with a long new rip in the Peggy Janes, and before she could rise to her feet, she found herself and Mildred fast in Cousin Penelope’s arms, and Cousin Penelope, in her lovely white and green summery things, was actually hugging a dusty Meadows child, and kissing her—yes, kissing her.
“You’re coming home with us now, Caroline,” Cousin Penelope whispered. Yes, she had been crying. Caroline could feel that the cheek pressed against her own was wet. And Caroline wanted to cry, too, but she couldn’t.
“Oh, no!” she said achingly. “Oh, no! I want to like anything—but I couldn’t! I couldn’t bear to go away again—I thought last time I was going to die.”
“But you’re not going away again, ever,” said Cousin Penelope. “You’re coming home with us to stay—always. Don’t you understand, dear? Aunt Eunice wants you—and I want you, too, Caroline—I want you to be my very own little girl.”
CHAPTER XLIV
“HAPPY EVER AFTER!”
Not more than fifteen minutes later Caroline actually was riding away from the farm in the gray-lined, soft-cushioned limousine. She sat between Aunt Eunice and Cousin Penelope. She had Mildred on her knee, and her old suitcase rested on the rug at her feet. In the suitcase were her comb and brushes and nightdress, the satin candy box that held Mildred’s wardrobe, the old lacquer box, tied with a crumpled hair-ribbon, the little chintz cases, marked with the cross-stitched initials, F. T., which were her mother’s initials, and the worn bed-shoes that her mother had crocheted for her months ago. All her other worldly goods Caroline had bequeathed to an astonished Nellie.