“Why, Jane!” exclaimed her mother. “Why, Janey!”
After the scolding, the sermon and the punishment were over and the children had been sent forgiven to bed, the four grown-ups went out onto the veranda again. It was a soft, balmy night, with no hint of the coming autumn in the air. The stars twinkled good-humoredly.
Grandmother, grandfather, mother and father all looked at one another for a moment; then—I am sorry to say that then they laughed; laughed until the tears rolled down their cheeks and they had to sit down to keep from tipping over.
But of course Jane and Christopher never knew that.
[CHAPTER XX—OLD SCENES AGAIN]
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and Letty came out to Sunnycrest on the following Monday, as they had been invited to do, and every one spent a happy week. Letty was radiant to meet again some one who had seen and known her mother, and urged Mrs. Baker, Jr., to tell Mrs. Hartwell-Jones everything she could remember about the sweet, sad-faced gentlewoman who had trained her little daughter so carefully and lovingly.
There were long, long talks among the grown-ups, and both grandmother and the mother of the twins were confident that Mrs. Hartwell-Jones had done wisely in making Letty her own little girl.
Letty had asked permission to renew only one tie of her past life.
“You have told Mrs. Drake already,” she said to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, “and I should like all my other friends to know, if I could reach them. There was dear Miss Reese. She was so good to me and my mother one winter, and then I never heard from her again, nor her cousin, Clara Markham. Indeed, I’ve even forgotten what Miss Reese’s married name is. I have always thought of her as Miss Reese.
“Then there was Mrs. Goldberg at Willow Grove. She was awfully good-hearted although she was so fat and homely and dressed so badly. But she and Mr. Goldberg went out to California just before—before my mother died. Mr. Goldberg wanted Ben to go out to California with him, but Ben couldn’t leave mother and me. Perhaps if he had gone——” Letty stopped and her eyes filled with tears. “Perhaps that horrible accident wouldn’t have happened!”