“I certainly have had a thorough ‘change,’ Mother Amy; and I have been considerably ‘stirred up.’ But whether everything is as it should be, that I am not prepared to say. I was never so puzzled in my life; and I never heard of such children.”
“They are good children, only a bit more sprightly than common”; returned the grandmother, fondly. “I shall be glad when thee thinks it is best for me to go back to them.”
Ruth sighed profoundly. She was conscious already of a sort of homesick feeling to be living again amidst all that overflowing life which had taken possession of The Snuggery and practically driven her out of it.
Mother Amy looked up from her knitting once more. “Thy brow is frowning, and thee looks even more perplexed than when thee went away, Ruth; but brighter and gayer.”
“Yes, mother, it did do me good, I think; but—”
“I hope the children have not been doing anything rash.”
“Doing! Rash! Mother Amy, think of the most unlikely thing in the world, and then make up thy mind that those children have done it. Even then thee will be far short of the mark.”
CHAPTER XX.
A “Mystery” is not healthful for any one; even when the secret originates in brains as youthful as Octave’s; and though it did not solve the problem for the household, yet the visit of Miss Kinsolving had somewhat the effect of a thunder-storm upon a murky atmosphere. Certainly, after her few words of apology and approbation to Paula, that painstaking girl felt too happy to pay any further attention to the vagaries of the “conspirators,” Melville and Octave; Content had her thoughts drawn from it by the arrival of fresh letters and parcels from Japan; Christina was deep in some new volumes of old-time fairy tales, which her aunt had substituted for Luke’s story papers; and little Fritz lived mostly out of doors.
So if the “Mystery” did not die, the interest of those not immediately connected with it did die; and The Snuggery, for several consecutive days, appeared as the abode of perfect peacefulness.