“Richard Morland was my mother’s father!” she said, scarcely above a whisper; “how did his name come here, Dr. Russell?”
Father held the paper to the lamp, scarcely less excited than Mrs. Terry, who stood with clasped hands and a strange, searching expression in her eyes as they followed him.
“Richard Morland, yes, that is the name,” said father, making sure of every letter. “He once taught school at the old centre village. It was before my time, but it is a matter of record, and some of the old people still speak of him. As I remember the story, the school-teacher always boarded at the Dearborn farm.”
“Then my grandfather once lived in the house where we were, to-day, and probably slept in the four-posted bed and saw the parrots perched in the flowers on the wall the first thing in the morning,” Mrs. Terry said slowly, turning her back to the room and speaking, as it were, to the fire.
“It is very strange, because when I went into the room, it did not seem new to me. I, too, must sleep in the great bed and wake up with the sunshine on that old, old paper.”
“It is a pity that it couldn’t be taken off the wall so that all the fittings might be kept together,” I said thoughtlessly. But the young woman wheeled around swiftly, and putting a hand on either of my shoulders held me off, at the same time that her expression drew me close.
“That paper shall never come off,” she said. “If grandpa had married Miss Sallie, she would have been my grandmother and I should have belonged in the Dearborn homestead. It’s too late for that now, but I’m going to buy the place and manage it that way. Don’t you see, Mrs. Evan? I’ve found my reason, the reason that I wanted to make me stay somewhere until I had taken root and couldn’t get away. Then perhaps I may find out something more from the old place to make me hug it tighter. Anyway, the south pasture is just the place to turn out horses.
“Don’t you think, Dr. Russell, that they might be willing to sell before next week? Please may I use the telephone? I’ll call up Terry, he will be so relieved! And then I must get to work and find out why Miss Sallie wasn’t my grandmother.”
Now the time had come for father to open Miss Sallie’s letter, which said that—the desk and its contents were to become the property of the owner of the house!