“You can come home when you get ready, Abby,” she said over her shoulder. “But you want to be careful driving that horse of yours; he might cut up something scandalous if he was to meet an auto.”
Chapter X.
Mrs. Daggett was sitting by the window gazing dreamily out, when Lydia returned after witnessing the triumphant departure of the promoter of Famous People.
“It kind of brings it all back to me,” said Mrs. Daggett, furtively wiping her eyes. “It’s going t’ look pretty near’s it used to. Only I remember Mis’ Bolton used to have a flower garden all along that stone wall over there; she was awful fond of flowers. I remember I gave her some roots of pinies and iris out of our yard, and she gave me a new kind of lilac bush—pink, it is, and sweet! My! you can smell it a mile off when it’s in blow.”
“Then you knew—the Bolton family?”
The girl’s blue eyes widened wistfully as she asked the question.
“Yes, indeed, my dear. And I want to tell you—just betwixt ourselves—that Andrew Bolton was a real nice man; and don’t you let folks set you t’ thinking he wa’n’t. Now that you’re going to live right here in this house, my dear, seems to me it would be a lot pleasanter to know that those who were here before you were just good, kind folks that had made a mistake. I was saying to Henry this morning: ‘I’m going to tell her some of the nice things folks has seemed to forget about the Boltons. It won’t do any harm,’ I said. ‘And it’ll be cheerfuller for her.’ Now this room we’re sitting in—I remember lots of pleasant things about this room. ’Twas here—right at that desk—he gave us a check to fix up the church. He was always doing things like that. But folks don’t seem to remember.”
“Thank you so much, dear Mrs. Daggett, for telling me,” murmured Lydia. “Indeed it will be—cheerfuller for me to know that Andrew Bolton wasn’t always—a thief. I’ve sometimes imagined him walking about these rooms.... One can’t help it, you know, in an old house like this.”
Mrs. Daggett nodded eagerly. Here was one to whom she might impart some of the secret thoughts and imaginings which even Maria Dodge would have called “outlandish”:
“I know,” she said. “Sometimes I’ve wondered if—if mebbe folks don’t leave something or other after them—something you can’t see nor touch; but you can sense it, just as plain, in your mind. But land! I don’t know as I’d ought to mention it; of course you know I don’t mean ghosts and like that.”