“Eva says her mother knows it’s true. People have seen it.”
“Up in our garret?”
“Ugh! In the garret of this old house—yes,” groaned Agnes. “Don’t call it our house. I guess I don’t like it much, after all.”
“Why, Aggie! How ungrateful.”
“I don’t care. For all of me, Uncle Peter could have kept his old house, if he was going to leave a ghost in the garret.”
“Hush! the children will hear you,” whispered Ruth.
[CHAPTER VI—UNCLE RUFUS]
That whispered conversation between Ruth and Agnes after they were abed that first Sunday night of the Kenways’ occupancy of the Old Corner House, bore unexpected fruit. Dot’s ears were sharp, and she had not been asleep.
From the room she and Tess occupied, opening out of the chamber in which the bigger girls slept, Dot heard enough of the whispered talk to get a fixed idea in her head. And when Dot did get an idea, it was hard to “shake it loose,” as Agnes declared.
Mrs. McCall kept one eye on Tess and Dot as they played about the overgrown garden, for she could see this easily from the kitchen windows. Mrs. McCall had already made herself indispensable to the family; even Aunt Sarah recognized her worth.