"Oh!" Hilary cried, following with Pauline.
Beside the minister's shabby old gig, stood the smartest of smart traps, and hanging on the wall behind it, a pretty russet harness, with silver mountings.
Hilary sat down on an old saw horse; she felt again as though she must be dreaming.
"There isn't another such cute rig in town, Jim says so," Patience said. Jim was the stable boy. "It beats Bell Ward's all to pieces."
"But why—I mean, how did Uncle Paul ever come to send it to us?" Hilary said. Of course one had always known that there was—somewhere—a person named Uncle Paul; but he had appeared about as remote and indefinite a being as—that same Sultan of Turkey, for instance.
"After all, why shouldn't he?" Pauline answered.
"But I don't believe he would've if Paul had not written to him that time," Patience added. "Maybe next time I tell you anything, you'll believe me, Hilary Shaw."
But Hilary was staring at Pauline. "You didn't write to Uncle Paul?"
"I'm afraid I did."
"Was—was that the letter—you remember, that afternoon?"