"Tell her he was a good man and had fewer sins to his account than most of us," added Sarah.
"Did you know, Abel, that old Mr. Jonathan left her ten thousand dollars a year as long as she lives with the Gays?" asked Blossom, coming over to where he stood.
He stared at her in amazement. "Where on earth did you hear that?" he asked.
A flush reddened her face.
"Somebody told me. I forget just who it was," she replied.
"When did it happen? How long have you known it?"
But she was on her guard now, wrapped in that soft, pale reticence which was the spiritual aspect of her beauty.
"It may have been only one of the darkies' stories. I didn't pay much attention to it," she answered, and busied herself about the geraniums in the window.
"Oh, you can't put any faith in the darkies' tales," rejoined Abel, and after leaving a message with his mother for a farmer with whom he had an appointment, he hastened out of the house and over the fields in the direction of Reuben Merryweather's cottage. Here, where he had expected to find Molly, Kesiah met him, with some long black things over her arm, and a frown of anxious sympathy on her face.
"The child is broken-hearted," she said with dignity, for a funeral was one of the few occasions upon which she felt that she appeared to advantage. "I don't think she can see you—but I'll go in and ask, if you wish it."