“Then I feel, I have felt for some time, I ought to ask you—well, to enquire how you are gettin’ on over at your Aunt Harriet Towers?”
“Why, very well,” faltered Gloria. “Of course, I am getting along splendidly,” she managed to amend.
“Then it’s all right, I suppose,” added the queer little man with the deep set, squinting eyes. His manner was mysterious. He said he supposed it was all right, but the words and their tone included an unmistakable doubt.
“Of course, I couldn’t go to boarding school,” Gloria could not help complaining. “Aunt Hattie seemed to have mixed things up—”.
“I should say she did.” Again the paper weight was moved, this time to the left. “I suppose you know that house is yours?”
“Mine?”
“It certainly is.” The man at the desk was speaking eloquently, but Gloria was dumbfounded. “And if I can do anything to carry out the wishes of that noble little lady, Lottie Macumber, I’m here to do it.”
“You say the house is mine? Why, that was built before Aunt Lottie—”
“Oh, I don’t mean the house they are living in. I mean the one that was bought on ‘speck,’” Mr. Hanaford hastened to explain.
“But I didn’t know there was any other house,” gasped the mystified Gloria.