Lucy made two hesitating steps in the direction of the basket, and stopped.
“Do you think—we’d better not—touch it, Miss Olivia?” she asked, doubtfully.
Miss Denison got up, with a grave and troubled face.
“Don’t you think it’s a little too late to try to avoid an obligation, Lucy, when every one of the comforts round us—fire, chairs, table, the very beds we are going to sleep on, we owe to Mr. Brander?”
Lucy snatched at this view of the matter readily, and trotted off with eager steps to inspect the contents of the basket. These proved most satisfactory.
“Bread, Miss Olivia; butter, cake, oh! And a cold fowl! And a silver tea-pot!” she announced gleefully as she made one discovery after another, and skipped with her prizes to the table.
Olivia, healthy girl as she was, could not eat much that evening. Her responsibilities in the new home were beginning to look very heavy; and the strange story she had just learnt oppressed her. Lucy, on the other hand, found that a good supper led her to take a more cheerful view of current affairs.
“Oh, Miss Olivia!” she exclaimed, when the meal was ended and they were preparing to retire for the night, “how much nicer this is, with ghosts and murderers and all, than it’ll be when Mrs. Denison comes and the children! Like this, with just you, it’s jolly, and I could work for you all day. And I suppose when you’ve committed a murder it makes you feel that you must be nicer, like, to make up for it, for certainly Mr. Brander is a nice-spoken gentleman and a kind one, and no two ways about it.”
“Now, Lucy,” said her mistress, gravely, “you must put that story right out of your head, as I am going to do. We’ll hope there’s no truth in it all; but even if every word were true, we have no right to bring it up against a man whose life sets an example to the whole parish, and who has shown us kindness that we ought never to forget. I hope you will have the good sense and good feeling not to tattle about it to cook and to Esther when they come.”
“No, ma’am,” said Lucy, demurely.