"Hide the body in the corner, Gilly," said Nancy; "and say, Gilly—"
"Yes, what?"
"You see he's in two pieces?"
"Yes."
"What do you say to making him four, or more?"
"I say you go downstairs ahead of me and into the house, and I follow you a moment later! Close the barn door carefully behind you!—Am I understood?"
"You are, Gilly! understood, and gloried in, and reverenced. My spirit will be with you when you do it, Gilly dear, though I myself will be greeting Cousin Ann and Julia!"
XII
COUSIN ANN
Mother Carey, not wishing to make any larger number of persons uncomfortable than necessary, had asked Julia not to come to them until after the house in Beulah had been put to rights; but the Fergusons went abroad rather unexpectedly, and Mr. Ferguson tore Julia from the arms of Gladys and put her on the train with very little formality. Her meeting Cousin Ann on the way was merely one of those unpleasant coincidences with which life is filled, although it is hardly possible, usually, for two such disagreeable persons to be on the same small spot at the same precise moment.