“Well, I declare, if there ain’t another sleigh drivin’ in,” cried the old woman excitedly, sitting up in bed and peering through the little window. “Must be they’re givin’ us a s’prise party. Now hurry, Ella, an’ git them slippers. I ain’t a-goin’ to lose none o’ the fun!” And Ella, nervous, perplexed, and thoroughly frightened, did as she was bid.
In state, in the big rocking-chair, the old woman received her guests. She said little, it is true, but she was there; and if she noticed that no guest entered the room without a few whispered words from Ella in the hall, she made no sign. Neither did she apparently consider it strange that ten women and six men should have braved the cold to spend fifteen rather embarrassed minutes in her sitting-room--and for this last both Ella and Jim were devoutly grateful. They could not help wondering about it, however, after she had gone to bed, and the house was still.
“What do ye s’pose she thought?” whispered Jim.
“I don’t know,” shivered Ella, “but, Jim, wan’t it awful?--Mis’ Blair brought a white wreath--everlastin’s!”
One by one the days passed, and Jim and Ella ceased to tremble every time the old woman opened her lips. There was still that fearsome thing in the attic, but the chance of discovery was small now.
“If she should find out,” Ella had said, “’twould be the end of the money--fer us.”
“But she ain’t a-goin’ ter find out,” Jim had retorted. “She can’t last long, ‘course, an’ I guess she won’t change the will now--unless some one tells her; an’ I’ll be plaguy careful there don’t no one do that!”
The “funeral” was a week old when Mrs. Darling came into the sitting-room one day, fully dressed.
“I put on all my clo’s,” she said smilingly, in answer to Ella’s shocked exclamation. “I got restless, somehow, an’ sick o’ wrappers. Besides, I wanted to walk around the house a little. I git kind o’ tired o’ jest one room.” And she limped across the floor to the hall door.
“But, Aunt Abby, where ye goin’ now?” faltered Ella.