Adele drew rein and fairly flew up the walk, Gertrude following her.
“Oh, Miss Grackle!” Adele cried. “I’m so glad to see that you are well again. And have you really and truly moved over here?”
Somehow Miss Grackle did not seem to be old, like Granny Dorset, and, for that matter, she was several years the younger.
Upon hearing her name called, the woman turned and welcomed the girls gladly. “Yes,” she said, and there was almost a quiver in her voice. “For years it has seemed as though I just couldn’t come back here without sister Miranda, and when she never even wrote to me, I turned bitter against everybody, but when you little girls came the other day and showed me that there was love and kindness in the world, I decided to live a while longer and see if I couldn’t do a bit of good. I’m going to try to really live now. I’ve been buried long enough.”
“Oh, Miss Grackle,” Adele cried, “I’m so glad! So glad! And what a nice place this is! You had beautiful grounds once, didn’t you?”
The lady nodded. “Father was proud of his lawns and gardens,” she said. “You see that little cottage on the edge of the grove. Father’s gardener lived there, and his wife helped mother in the kitchen, for there were three children of us then,—I had a brother who died,—and there was work enough to do.”
“It’s a pretty little cottage,” Adele said. “Has it been empty all these years?”
“Yes,” Miss Grackle replied. “I would like to have a couple living in it now, if the man would attend to my grounds in exchange for the rent.”
With a cry of joy Adele threw her arms about the astonished woman as she exclaimed, “Would you really, truly, Miss Grackle? Oh, Gertrude, wouldn’t it be just the nicest place for the Quigleys?”
“Why, what has happened to the Quigleys?” Miss Grackle asked in surprise. “I thought that they had a small farm of their own. Did they lose it? You see, I haven’t heard a bit of news in years.”