She had not seen Mr. Royall on her return to the red house. The morning after her parting from Harney, when she came down from her room, Verena told her that her guardian had gone off to Worcester and Portland. It was the time of year when he usually reported to the insurance agencies he represented, and there was nothing unusual in his departure except its suddenness. She thought little about him, except to be glad he was not there....
She kept to herself for the first days, while North Dormer was recovering from its brief plunge into publicity, and the subsiding agitation left her unnoticed. But the faithful Ally could not be long avoided. For the first few days after the close of the Old Home Week festivities Charity escaped her by roaming the hills all day when she was not at her post in the library; but after that a period of rain set in, and one pouring afternoon, Ally, sure that she would find her friend indoors, came around to the red house with her sewing.
The two girls sat upstairs in Charity's room. Charity, her idle hands in her lap, was sunk in a kind of leaden dream, through which she was only half-conscious of Ally, who sat opposite her in a low rush-bottomed chair, her work pinned to her knee, and her thin lips pursed up as she bent above it.
“It was my idea running a ribbon through the gauging,” she said proudly, drawing back to contemplate the blouse she was trimming. “It's for Miss Balch: she was awfully pleased.” She paused and then added, with a queer tremor in her piping voice: “I darsn't have told her I got the idea from one I saw on Julia.”
Charity raised her eyes listlessly. “Do you still see Julia sometimes?”
Ally reddened, as if the allusion had escaped her unintentionally. “Oh, it was a long time ago I seen her with those gaugings....”
Silence fell again, and Ally presently continued: “Miss Balch left me a whole lot of things to do over this time.”
“Why—has she gone?” Charity inquired with an inner start of apprehension.
“Didn't you know? She went off the morning after they had the celebration at Hamblin. I seen her drive by early with Mr. Harney.”
There was another silence, measured by the steady tick of the rain against the window, and, at intervals, by the snipping sound of Ally's scissors.