“Yep; she told me so her own self; didn’t you, Content?”
“Yes, I did tell him so, Aunt Ruth; but it was not here that I was guilty of the sin. We were comparing notes, and finding out that everybody does wrong, even though they do not mean to,” said Content, in her low voice and with a painful flush on her fair cheek. It was one thing to be confidentially sympathetic with Fritzy, in the privacy of her own room and the sacredness of a Sunday afternoon chat; it was quite another to have her fault published “on the housetop” as it were, and as a sort of send-off to her aunt’s unexpected return.
“Well, I declare!” said Octave, suddenly. Then stopped, as if she had forgotten herself.
“Thee declares what, Octave?” asked Ruth, sharply, and sitting suddenly down upon the foot of Melville’s lounge.
“I don’t know how to say it, but something appears to have come over all of us and set us all by the ears, just the minute you came in.”
It was an unfortunate speech, and Octave swiftly recognized the fact; but she could see no way of setting it right, so perforce she left it.
“I am not accustomed to setting people ‘by the ears,’ Octave; and if thee and thy sisters are disturbed by my coming there must be some reason for it. I may as well tell all that I had a very peculiar letter from Rosetta Perkins, and it is that has sent me home on this flying visit.”
Melville caught the word “flying,” and, in his relief that it was only such an one, he winked at Octave. Aunt Ruth intercepted the wink and the swift glance of sympathy which answered it. More than ever was she convinced that there was mischief afoot, and that she was none too soon upon the scene.
“Aunt Ruth, did you bring Rosetta’s letter with you?” asked Octave, so suddenly that the other replied without thinking.
“Yes, I think it is in my hand-bag.”