“No, she has not reported at all. You feel pretty sure that it was she?”
“Yes, Cousin Di. I’ll tell you all about it the first chance I have. But I suppose that Nell gave you a good description of our night up here.”
“She did, indeed. You poor children! I slept on peacefully after our late drive home, not knowing that you youngsters were having such a time. You should have called us.”
“No use in waking you up, I thought. Where is Uncle Pieter?”
“He had to go out on the farm, but he talked with Paulina and he wants to see you as soon as he comes in. Here he comes now!”
Stooping and brushing off dust, Mr. Van Meter came from the back, or more properly the front of the attic. He was smiling and remarked that he passed an excited boy on the way. “This is a new place for a family conference,” he added. “We have come up in the world, I see.”
But Jannet, tired as she was after her experiences of the night, liked this close gathering with its entire loss of all formality. She jokingly offered him the rocking chair, but slipped a hand in his as she told him of the portfolio and its amazing notes. “Nobody could have made them up and put them there, could they?”
Uncle Pieter, surprised, put on his glasses and looked at the leather portfolio with its old pockets. “I think not, Jannet, but let us go down to the library and you shall tell me the whole story from the first. I can not get a very connected narrative from Paulina.”
Andy threw back his head and laughed at this remark. “Imagine any one’s getting a connected narrative from P’lina about anything!”
Jannet displayed the old dolls and dishes which the small box contained. “If they prove to be the ones referred to,” said Uncle Pieter, “I may have a case made for them and the portfolio.”