But Will was not there that day when Essie had been telling Ally her dreams, and Aunt Susan came up to put something away, not observing them at all, as both sat among the chests, silent for the moment.
Aunt Susan had turned about to go down again, when an old bureau caught her eye. She seemed to hesitate a moment, then stopped, and opened a low drawer. She snatched something up to her lips; and then she sank down upon the floor, and sat there, holding a little yellow shirt to her face, and crying bitterly.
For an instant the two children were frightened to see Aunt Susan cry—that very grave and serene person!
“Oh, it’s her baby’s!” Essie whispered to Ally. But though she would have liked to comfort Aunt Susan, she sat still.
But the next moment little Ally sprang up, ran to Aunt Susan, and threw her arms about her neck, and brought her little face round upon Aunt Susan’s cheek till the tears wet it. “Oh, I know just how you feel!” she whispered. “I’m so sorry for you! was it a dear baby?”
“Oh, you are a dear baby!” cried Aunt Susan, taking her in her arms.
And perhaps that was the beginning of the strong friendship between Aunt Susan and Ally.
For Aunt Susan remembered very vividly that morning in the garret on the day long after—away over near the end of this story—when Ally was found, after the time when she had gone up, as Janet had suspected, to see the Children of the Hill.
But there were sunny days as well as stormy ones, along through that first autumn, and often all the children in the house would be gone out nutting.
At last came the great frost, to open the burrs, and Pincher said next morning that if they didn’t make haste that very day the squirrels would gather all the rest of the nuts.