“Miss Burke, I believe?” he inquired. “I am Custer Pennington.”
“Oh, it was you who wired me,” she said.
“No—that was my father.”
“I am afraid I did not thank him for all his kindness. I must have seemed very ungrateful.”
“Oh, no, indeed, Miss Burke,” he said, with a quick smile of sympathy. “We all understand, perfectly—you have suffered a severe nervous shock. We just want to help you all we can, and we are sorry that there is so little we can do.”
“I think you have done a great deal, already, for a stranger.”
“Not a stranger exactly,” he hastened to assure her. “We were all so fond of your mother that we feel that her daughter can scarcely be considered a stranger. She was a very lovable woman, Miss Burke—a very fine woman.”
Shannon felt tears in her eyes, and turned them away quickly. Very gently he touched her arm.
“Mother heard you moving about in your rooms, and she has gone over to the kitchen to make some tea for you. If you will come with me, I’ll show you to the breakfast room. She’ll have it ready in a jiffy.”
She followed him through the living room and the library to the dining room, beyond which a small breakfast room looked out toward the peaceful hills. Young Pennington opened a door leading from the dining room to the butler’s pantry, and called to his mother.