Jenny’s liquid brown eyes were aglow with pleasure. This was Harold’s mother for whom she could do a real service. “Oh, may I read to you, Mrs. Poindexter-Jones? I would be so glad to do something—” she hesitated and a deeper rose color stole into her cheeks. She could not say for “Harold’s mother.” Mrs. Poindexter-Jones would not understand the depth of the girl’s gratitude toward the boy who was making it possible for her dear old grandparents to remain on the farm. And the woman, gazing at her, found that just then she could not mention remuneration.
“Suppose you come to me day after tomorrow at ten.” Miss Dane had appeared to say that it was time for the invalid to go into the house.
“Is it noon so soon?” the woman inquired, then turning back toward the girl who had risen, she added: “Seeing you has done me much good. Good-bye. Tell Susan Warner I want to see her tomorrow.”
Jenny returned home, her heart singing. She was to have an opportunity to thank Harold, and she was glad.
When Jenny reached the farmhouse she found her family in the kitchen, and by the way they all stopped talking when she entered, she was sure that something had happened during her absence which they had been discussing, nor was she wrong.
She looked from one interested face to another, then exclaimed: “You’re keeping a secret from me. What is it, please tell!”
Lenora, who had been made comfortable with pillows in grandfather’s easy chair, drawn close to the stove, merrily replied: “The secret is in plain sight. You must hunt, though, and find it.”
Jenny whirled to look at the table, already set with the supper things, but nothing unusual was there; then her glance traveled to the old mahogany cupboard, where, behind glass doors, in tidy rows, the best china stood. There, leaning against a tumbler, was an envelope bearing a foreign stamp.
With a cry of joy Jenny leaped forward. Instinctively she seemed to know that it was the long watched-for letter from Etta Heldt, nor was she wrong.
With eager fingers the envelope was opened. A draft fluttered to the floor. Jenny picked it up, then, after a glance at it, turned a glowing face toward the others.