“Just the same, he died in the Quoharie poorhouse,” Agnes cried, quickly.
“He would have been cared for here in Milton by the authorities had he asked help. Peter Stower and Lemuel Aden were both misers. It was said of them that each had the first dollar he ever earned.”
“Dear me!” Ruth said, as the old prophet concluded. “If Mr. Aden did have money at any time, it is too bad Mrs. Eland can’t find it. She and her sister need it now, if ever they did,” and she sighed, thinking of Dr. Forsyth’s report upon Miss Pepperill’s condition.
CHAPTER VIII—WHERE IS NEALE O’NEIL?
Christmas Day wore away toward evening. A number of the young friends of the Corner House girls ran in to bring gifts and to wish Ruth and Agnes and Tess and Dot a Merry Christmas. Many of them, too, stayed for a moment to speak to Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill. The interest aroused by the recently performed play at the Opera House for the benefit of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital had awakened interest likewise in “the little gray lady” and her sister.
“I never was so popular before with the school children of Milton,” the latter said, rather tartly. “I’d better be run down by an automobile about once a year.”
“Oh, that would be dreadful!” Tess exclaimed.
“It is a shame you don’t know who it was that ran you down. He could be made to pay something,” Ruth remarked.
“My goodness! Get money that I hadn’t earned!” cried the school teacher.
“I should say you’d earned it—and earned it mighty hard,” said Mrs. MacCall, who happened to hear this.