"We opened the trunk, Aunt Keren, mother," said Bob, making himself spokesman. "It had a lot of trash in it, but it had something else besides. We have found Gretta's grandmother's will!"
"Her will!" cried Mrs. Scollard. And with an instant perception of the truth, Miss Bradbury added: "And she has left this farm to Gretta; her husband hid the will!"
"Well, of course we can't tell about that," said Bob. "But yet it must have been so. The will was under a lot of old account-books, clothes and stuff belonging to old Bittenbender. It gives this place to Mrs. Bittenbender's son, Rufus Engel, and if he died, to his daughter Gretta."
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" cried Gretta, throwing herself face downward on the couch. "After you've been so good to me! But maybe it won't matter. We won't tell any one we found the old will, and then you can keep the Ark!"
Miss Bradbury laughed. "My dear little girl, would you have me compound a felony?" she asked, going over to stroke Gretta's hair. "Look up, my dear Gretta, and let me see you as glad as you should be! No longer a homeless girl, dependent on the grudging kindness of distant kindred, but an heiress, as things go in the country; the owner of an excellent farm. As for me, you know how hard I tried to find this will, and how glad I am to have justice done you. Fancy hiding the will! Why, this old man your grandmother married was a rare old scamp, and would you have me as bad as he was? We'll hasten to prove the will, get it through probate, and establish our Gretta in her rights just as fast as the law can move. Don't feel sorry, Gretta, my dear! I am very glad, and can get on perfectly well without the Ark. How much good has it done me since I took it until this summer? Isn't it a good joke on us all that the will was reposing quietly in our attic all the time that we were scouring the country for a trace of it?"
Gretta sat up flushed and purpling with excitement, her eyes burning, her breath coming short. "I'll never take the Ark, never, unless you don't want it!" she cried. "And I'll never take it then unless you will promise to own it with me and stay here all the time, and let me work for you. I won't touch the will, nor the place, unless you own it just as much as I do."
"My dear, grateful, generous Gretta," said Miss Bradbury, "did you ever hear that Shakespeare said that some people had greatness thrust upon them? You can't escape your good fortune in this world any more than your bad luck. I did not intend staying here all the time, you know, even when I owned the farm. But we'll promise that the Ark shall be our refuge when we need one, just as it was your refuge in time of trouble when I owned it. And who knows what good may be in store for us, as well as you? Good and bad happenings seem to run in schools, like mackerel, I have noticed."
"I feel exactly as if I were in a story-book," said Happie. "Hidden wills and tardy justice done the heroine, who has been poor and oppressed—now isn't it a regular fairy-tale?"
"It is very interesting," said Laura, so pensively that they all laughed, even Gretta.
"It is the very best thing that could have happened," declared Mrs. Scollard heartily, with an eye on Gretta's still clouded face. "It will turn this dreary day into summer sunshine. Come, let us tell Rosie; she will be delighted too."