Miss Priscilla looked at her sister in utter amazement. Dorinda had never spoken like this before, and it seemed as if the spirit of old Josiah Flint was manifesting itself in his daughter.
But if Miss Dorinda had acted in an unusual manner, Miss Priscilla proceeded to behave no less strangely.
At the close of her sister’s speech, she suddenly burst into tears; and the times in her life when Miss Priscilla Flint had cried were very few indeed.
Then the younger sister was frightened at what she had done, and tried to pacify the weeping lady.
“I know you’re right, Dorinda,” said Miss Priscilla, between her sobs; “I—I knew it all along,—and I suppose we shall have to keep her. Father would have wished it so,—and—and I wouldn’t mind it so much if she wouldn’t—wouldn’t leave the doors open.”
CHAPTER VI
UP A TREE
While the aunts were deciding upon Ladybird’s future, old Matthew was wandering down the garden path toward the orchard.
“She bates the Dutch, that child,” he said to himself. “Now I’ll wager me dinner that she’s hidin’ under a cabbage-leaf, or in some burrd’s nest.”
But if so, Ladybird made no sign, and old Matthew tramped up and down the orchard, peering anxiously about while the shadows deepened.
At last, as he stood beneath an old gnarled apple-tree, he heard what seemed to be a far-away crooning sort of song.