"At the what, child?" gasped Agnes. "What is it you said?"
"Well—where she lives now," Dot responded, dodging the doubtful word.
"Goodness, dear!" laughed Ruth, "we can't make the old Corner House a refuge for destitute females."
"I don't care!" spoke up Dot, quickly. "Didn't they make the Toomey-Smith house, on High Street into a home for indignant old maids?"
At that the older girls shouted with laughter. "'In-di-gent'—'in-di-gent'! child," corrected Agnes, at last. "That means without means—poor—unable to care for themselves. 'Indignant old maids,' indeed!"
"Maybe they were indignant," suggested Tess, too tender hearted to see Dot's ignorance exposed in public, despite her own private criticism of the little one's misuse of the English language. "See how indignant Aunt Sarah is—and she's an old maid."
This amused Ruth and Agnes even more than Dot's observation. It was true that Aunt Sarah Maltby was frequently "an indignant old maid."
But Tess endured the laughter calmly. She was deeply interested in the problem of Mrs. Eland's future, and she said:
"Maybe Uncle Peter ought to have left the hospital some of his money when he died, instead of leaving it all to us and to Aunt Sarah."
"Do you want to give up some of your monthly allowance to help support the hospital, Tess?" demanded Ruth, briskly.