When the girl went out to the kitchen where her friend was preparing supper, she exclaimed, half laughing and half crying: “Nann Sibbett, I’m so brimming full of conflicting emotions, I don’t feel at all real. Pinch me, please, and see if I am.”
“Instead I’ll give you a hard hug; a congratulatory one. There! Did that seem real?” Then Nann added in her most sensible, matter-of-fact voice: “Now, wake up, Dori. You mustn’t go around in a trance. Of course the only mystery that you are interested in is solved, and wonderfully solved, but I’m just as keen as ever to know the secret the old ruin is holding.”
“I’ll try to be!” Dories promised, then confessed: “But, honestly, I am not a bit curious about any mystery, now that my own is solved.” A moment later she asked: “Nann, do you suppose Mother will want me to come home right away?”
“Why, I shouldn’t think so, Dori,” her friend replied. “You always hear from your mother on Friday, so wait and see what tomorrow brings.”
The morrow was to hold much of interest for both of the girls.
CHAPTER XXV.
PUZZLED AGAIN
As soon as their breakfast was over, Dories asked her Aunt if she were willing that the girls go to Siquaw Center for the mail. “I always get a letter from Mother on the Friday morning train,” was the excuse she gave, “and, of course, I am simply wild to hear what she will have to say today; that is, if she does know about—well, about what you told us that father’s lawyer had written.”
Miss Moore was glad to be alone, for she had had a sleepless night. She had long dreamed that, perhaps, when she became acquainted with her niece, that young person might be able to influence the stubborn mother to accept the home that the old woman had offered, and that peace might again be restored to the lonely, repentant heart. But now, just as that dream seemed about to be fulfilled, the mother was placed in a position of complete independence, and so, of course, she would never be willing to share the home of her husband’s great-aunt. The desolate loneliness of the years ahead, however few they might be, depressed the old woman greatly. Dories, seeing tears in the grey eyes, stooped impulsively, and, for the second time, she kissed her great-aunt. “If you will let me, I’m coming to visit you often,” she whispered, as though she had read her aunt’s thoughts. Then away the two girls went.
It was a glorious morning and they skipped along as fast as they could on the sandy road. Mrs. Strait, with a baby on one arm, was tending the general store and post office when the girls entered. No one else was in sight.
“Good morning, Mrs. Strait. Is there any mail for Miss Dories Moore?” that young maiden inquired.