Who were, or had been, the Jennisons? Great had they been once, in that part of the State. Early Jennisons had bought the island and named it “Jennison’s Island,” in Revolutionary days. One famous grandfather had built the mansion and fitted it with fine old-fashioned furnishings, and loved it, and lived and died in it. In his day this ancient roof had sheltered many a guest of famous name. Under it gay levees had come off, and sumptuous dinners and country merry-makings, and lively weddings and solemn funerals. Two of the belles in the family line had been the very “Mary Abigail” and “Sarah Amanda” who had stitched those yellowed samplers on the wall. They had died, grandmothers both, long ago. And of all the Jennison estate was left to-day only this single lonely corner of it, the island, its very name changed on the government maps by some State maneuver. Furthermore, to bear the family name and own the scattered remnants of this world’s goods left to its credit, there was now only a single representative, one Wentworth Jennison, according to Mrs. Probasco’s reserved account, an erratic and wandering man, who seldom set his foot near the home of his ancestors—once or twice a year, perhaps; then not again for another two or three seasons. He allowed an old lawyer at Chantico to lease island, farm, and house to the Probascos. They paid their modest rent and kept the mansion from destruction. They had long been its tenants.
Of course, the connection between these details became clearer in his later talks with the good farmer’s wife; but Philip gathered enough in her scraps of explanation that afternoon and evening to interest his boyish love of romance and novelty and to fill his heart with gratitude for this hospitable situation.
Just before supper-time Gerald awoke.
“Philip,” he called, “Philip! where have you gone?”
Touchtone hastened in from the kitchen. A few sentences with the sick boy gave him a delightful sense of relief. It was quite confirmed during the next half hour. Gerald’s fever had almost departed. He was told the good news of the Probascos’ return. On the first sight of his sympathetic hostess he “took to her” (so she expressed it), “as if we’d never done nothing but spend our hull lives in this same old house.” Obed was permitted by his vigilant spouse to come in and hold the boy’s slender hand in his for a few moments and speak his few kindly words of welcome and help. The invalid’s appetite that had developed was rewarded with a dainty supper, and he was made comfortable in fresh sheets. “O, I guess he’s all right, an’ doing splendidly, Mr. Touchtone,” Mrs. Probasco declared. “We wont give him a chance to get real sick, between us.”
“What kind people they are!” Gerald said, softly, to Touchtone, just as he was dropping off into a fresh doze, with the clink of Mrs. Probasco’s dishes and the murmur of her conference with Obed making a homely lullaby from the adjoining room.
“Yes, the kindest sort,” assented Touchtone. “Go to sleep, old man, and dream about them and every thing else that is pleasant. I’ll add a postscript to these letters, to bring them down to the latest minute.”
“O, yes, now you can. Did you write papa?”
“I have written papa and every body. Mr. Probasco is going to get up early to-morrow morning, and either take me over with these to Chantico or else carry them alone. So, you see, we are fairly started toward getting back to civilization and our friends again. The suspense all around will soon be over.”
“We’ve been through a good deal together, haven’t we? And in such a little while.”