XXV. — THE FELL FROST
After the rain came milder days. The still white mornings slowly brightened into hazy afternoons. The old moon like a sleep walker stood exposed in the morning sky. The roads to Stone Ridge were deep in fallen leaves. Soft-tired wheels rustled up the avenue and horses' feet fell light, as the last of the summer neighbors came to say good-by.
It was a party of four—Miss Sallie and a good-looking youth of the football cult on horseback, her mother and an elder sister, the delicate Miss Remsen, in a hired carriage. Their own traps had been sent to town.
Tea was served promptly, as the visitors had a long road home before their dinner-hour. In the reduced state of the establishment it was Katy who brought the tea while Cerissa looked after her little charge. Cerissa sat on the kitchen porch sewing and expanding under the deep attention of the cook; they could see Middy a little way off on the tennis-court wiping the mud gravely from a truant ball he had found among the nasturtiums. All was as peaceful as the time of day and the season of the year.
“Yes,” said Cerissa solemnly. “Old Abraham Van Elten was too much cumbered up with this world to get quit of it as easy as some. If his spirit is burdened with a message to anybody it's to her. He died unreconciled to her, and she inherited all this place in spite of him, as you may say. I've come as near believin' in such things since the goings on up there in that room”—
“She wants Middy fetched in to see the comp'ny,” cried Katy, bursting into the sentence. “Where is he, till I clean him? And she wants some more bread and butter as quick as ye can spread it.”
“Well, Katy!” said Cerissa slowly, with severe emphasis. “When I was a girl, my mother used to tell me it wasn't manners to”—
“I haven't got time to hear about yer mother,” said Katy rudely. “What have ye done with me boy?” The tennis-court lay vacant on the terrace in the sun; the steep lawn sloped away and dipped into the trees.
“Don't call,” said the cook warily. “It'll only scare her. He was there only a minute ago. Run, Katy, and see if he's at the stables.”
It was not noticed, except by Mrs. Bogardus, that no Katy, and no boy, and no bread and butter, had appeared. Possibly the last deficiency had attracted a little playful attention from the young horseback riders, who were accusing each other of eating more than their respective shares.