“But suppose—!”
“Yes, dear, it is possible. I've thought of that, and if it comes there will be a way I'm sure, but until it does—then suppose—”
“Yes, mother, I'll go and make her have one happy day first anyway. If any of those old vultures come around I'll play the piano or scream all the while they are there and keep them from telling her a thing!”
“I think, dear, the vultures will all be in Economy to-day.”
“All except Mrs. Frost, mother dear. She can't get away. But she can always run across the street to borrow a cup of soda.”
So Lynn knelt for a moment in her quiet room, then came down, kissed her mother and father with a face of brave serenity, and went down the maple shaded street with her silk work bag in her hand. And none too soon. As she tapped at the door of the Carter house she saw Mrs. Frost ambling purposefully out of the Gibson gate with a tea cup in her hand.
“Oh, hurry upstairs and stay there a minute till I get rid of Mrs. Frost,” Lynn whispered smiling as her hostess let her in. “I've come to spend the day with you, and she'll stay till she's told you all the news and there won't be any left for me.”
Mrs. Carter, greatly delighted with Lynn's company, hurried obediently up the stairs and Lynn met the interloper, supplied her with the cup of salt she had come for this time, said Mrs. Carter was upstairs making the beds and she wouldn't bother her to come down,—beds, mind you, as if Mark was at home of course—and Mrs. Frost went back across the street puzzled and baffled and resolved to come back later for an egg after that forward young daughter of the minister was gone.
Lynn locked the front door and ran up stairs. She tolled her hostess up to the attic to show her some ancient gowns and poke bonnets that she hadn't seen since she was a little girl in which she and Mark used to dress up and play history stories.
Half the morning she kept her up there looking at garments long folded away, whose wearers had slept in the church yard many years; trinkets of other days, quaint old pictures, photographs and daguerreotypes, and a beautiful curl of Mark's—: