“Not exactly anyone, but a lot of things,” laughed the woman. “I’ll never forget that fat man’s shirt front! Looked like my log-cabin quilt. And the lady with the yellow hair—remember her, Nancy? How it turned lavender?”
“Indeed I do; she looked like someone made up for a masquerade—”
“I wish I’d been there!” sighed Rose, interrupting Nancy. “But I never happen to be around when that sort of lark is on. Well, here we are. All ashore who’s going ashore!” she chanted. “And Mrs. Pixley, you can row almost as well as Nancy.”
This compliment was accepted with another flood of words from Mrs. Pixley. When all were again safely landed at the Fernell dock, the queer woman took herself off without any unnecessary delay. She had talked of her experiences on the train when Nancy had witnessed the grape juice explosion, she had talked of and against Orilla Rigney, she had talked of the unreasonable “lady customer” who had insisted upon early blueberries, and Nancy wondered, as she listened to her repeat her thanks and her goodnights, if Mrs. Pixley really ever stopped talking.
But this was not the most interesting point in the little adventure. Nancy’s wonderment centered more about the connection of Orilla with the affair. Mrs. Pixley seemed one more person who disliked that girl, and Nancy said so to Rosa.
“Wasn’t it dreadful of Orilla not to go back for her?” she said, when she and Rosa tied up the boat.
“It wouldn’t have killed old Pixley to stay on the island all night,” defended Rosa. “Maybe it would have cooled off her gabbing.”
Nancy had no desire to start a fresh argument. So she did not press the subject further, but she wondered when this person of mystery would make her appearance in Rosa’s home. That the passage for Europe of Mr. and Mrs. Fernell, now only a few hours off, would precipitate the invasion of Orilla, seemed rather too sure a guess for Nancy, for she dreaded its realization. She didn’t want anything to do with the Rigney girl, and she hoped Rosa would not now find her companionship desirable.
For in Nancy’s mind was stored the vivid remembrance of Rosa’s accident in the woods. This she could not help attributing to Orilla’s queer influence, and she hoped that the painful affair had been a good lesson to Rosa.
“Afraid of the dark?” Rosa asked, as the last rays of light were caught up in the receding sky.