“I came here,” said Cousin Judith, smilingly, yet with a serious ring in her sweet-toned voice, “at the call of duty. I wanted to come to you the moment I heard of your dear father’s death, but it takes some little time to break up an establishment even as modest as mine, when it is in far-away Italy. But here I am, at last.”
“Going to stay?” asked Sue, softly.
“I think so. Is there any room for me, here?”
“Plenty, Cousin Judith!” cried five voices.
“Then, while I drink my coffee, tell me all the news about yourselves. How is Gran’pa Eliot?—he’s my uncle, you know—and who takes care of him?”
Becky began the story, but talked so excitedly that she made a sad jumble of it. Then Phil picked up the narrative, telling the simple facts that Cousin Judith might be interested in, and Phœbe concluded the recital.
“I remember Elaine Halliday,” said the new arrival, musingly. “She was Aunt Eliot’s maid when I was a young girl, and whenever I visited here I used to fight with the woman continually. She had a rather sour disposition, then.”
“It’s worse now,” declared Becky. “She’s a reg’lar Tartar; and a—a—an autocrat, and an anarchist and traitor, and—”
“Afterward, she was housekeeper,” continued Judith. “I saw her more seldom, then, but she ran the household in an able manner while Aunt Eliot was so much of an invalid.”
“She has been a faithful servant, I’m sure,” said Phœbe, “and if she happens to be a bit cranky with us at times we ought to put up with it. I don’t know what gran’pa would do without her. She’s the only one who can understand him, and she attends to him and all his affairs—cooks the things he can eat—feeds him with a spoon, and all that.”