"She isn't the Salvation Army," said Dot, remembering that that order was uniformed from seeing them on the streets of Bloomingsburg, where the Kenways had lived before they had fallen heir to Uncle Peter Stower's estate.
"Of course not!" Tess cried. "And she don't look like one o' those deaconesses that came to see Ethel Mumford's mother when she was sick—do you remember?"
"Of course I remember—everything!" said the positive Dot. "Wasn't I a great, big girl when we came to Milton to live?"
"Why—why," stammered her sister, not wishing to displease Dot, but bound to be honest. "You aren't a very big girl, even now, Dot Kenway."
"Humph!" exclaimed Dot, quite vexed. "I wear bigger shoes and stockings, and Ruth is having Miss Ann Titus let down the hems of all my old dresses a full inch—so now!"
"I expect you have grown some, Dot," admitted Tess, reflectively. "But you aren't big enough even now to brag about."
The youngest Kenway might have been deeply offended by this—and shown that she had taken offence, too—had something new not taken her attention at the very moment she and Tess were entering the side gate of the old Corner House premises.
The house was a three story and attic mansion which was set well back from Main Street, but the side of which was separated from Willow Street by only a narrow strip of sward. The kitchen was in the wing nearest this last-named street, and there was a big, half-enclosed side porch, to which the woodshed was attached, and beyond which was the long grape arbor.
The length of the old Corner House yard, running parallel with Willow Street, was much greater than its width. The garden, summer house, henhouses, and other outbuildings were at the back. The lawn in front was well shaded, and there were plenty of fruit trees around the house. Not many dwellings in Milton had as much yard-room as the Stower homestead.
"Oh my, Tess!" gasped Dot, with deep interest, staring at the porch stoop. "Who is that—and what's he doing?"