“I’ll ask her. I’m sure she would. She leads rather a lonely life,” Dick answered. “And she loves young folks.”
“Say, Dick, who is this girl in the picture? Isn’t it too valuable a painting to be left here?” Terry was studying the painting.
“It’s not worth much. It was probably painted by one of those traveling artists who could do family portraits or barns, whichever might be wanted. Granny has left a few things in here to sort of claim the place, though the claim isn’t recognized. And we live now in a little house behind this one. It used to be the servants’ quarters,” Dick finished bitterly.
The little group fell silent. The girls had stumbled, it seemed, upon something very private, and they felt embarrassed at learning of someone’s misfortune.
“Like finding somebody crying when they thought they were alone,” Terry later remarked.
No one knew what to say. Dick walked to a window that reached almost from the ceiling to the floor, and stood looking out. Terry, always the first to move, stepped over the fender around the fireplace and peered up the chimney. For no reason except to break the trying silence, as far as she knew.
Barely perceptible at first, gradually a sound impressed itself on the girls. Like footsteps on a stair, far away but coming nearer, the sound approached.
Terry pulled back her head from the dark corner of the fireplace and looked at her friends. They stood like statues staring back at each other, while Dick turned slowly from the window.
“What’s that?” Sim asked, cocking her head like a young puppy as if to hear better.
“Sounds like someone creeping down the stairs,” Arden ventured.