“Dead and gone, deary; dead and gone. Old Mrs. Carew, she was the last of ’em. She was second cousin to me—I’d been staying with her for quite a spell. When she died, seems like I didn’t have anywheres else to go.”
“Oh,” Kitty cried, “you’re Mrs. Prior!” She remembered the hot wave of indignation that had swept through Woodford over Mrs. Carew’s neglect to provide for her poor old relative.
“Yes, I’m Mrs. Prior,” the other answered. “It used to be a pretty well-thought-of name ’bout here—Prior.”
“If you had friends in Woodford, would you go to see them?” Blue Bonnet asked.
“Indeed I would, deary. It do get a bit lonesome, never going nowhere. And—it ain’t ’s if I hadn’t been used to things different.”
“Will you come and see me?” Blue Bonnet asked impetuously.
Mrs. Prior gasped. So did Kitty, though not from the same reason. Kitty was thinking of Miss Clyde.
“Elizabeth,” she said hurriedly, “we must go.”
But Blue Bonnet waited to lay a hand on one of the old woman’s workworn ones. “When will you come?” she asked.
“We—Wednesday’s the day, deary.”