Arethusa gazed at her aunt, clasping and unclasping her hands helplessly; her lips parted for speech, but no words came, for so many words trembled there, they literally dammed one another up.
"I.... Did Father...." she managed to gasp, finally.
But Miss Eliza seemed to read through this inadequacy of expression some of that chaos of thought which whirled round and round in Arethusa's brain. She reached down in the little leather pocket that always hung at her belt and drew out a large, square envelope.
"Here, child, I said you could read it," and although her tone was as sharp as always, it was not unkind. "That woman he married. You want to know, I reckon. Some more about her. It's perfectly natural. He's gone into all sorts of raptures over her, of course. He wouldn't be Ross Worthington if he hadn't. And she is very probably just an ordinary female woman."
Arethusa seized the outstretched envelope eagerly.
"May I...?" she asked.
She spoke to Miss Asenath, who nodded a permission to the unfinished but evident request before either of the other aunts had a chance to refuse it.
So Arethusa was off like the wind, unheeding of the anxious call Miss Letitia sent after her.
Out through the back of the house this time, and on through the kitchen where she paused only long enough to squeeze Mandy, one of her staunchest allies and a certain sharer in all joys, to whirl her clear around from her table where she was working, and to wave the Letter at her excitedly and then plunge on, leaving Mandy absolutely breathless with the suddenness of this onslaught.
The rain was falling now, slowly but steadily, in big heavy drops, and the darkest clouds were lowering, apparently right above her head; but the flying girl paid no attention to these evidences of the imminence of her storm. She held the Letter pressed close against her as if to protect it and made straight for Miss Asenath's Woods, via the orchard.