The last part of Lydia's sentence, almost drowned by Nero's barking, was addressed to the empty window; at least it was empty when the D's turned toward it.
"Who? where?" shouted Dorothy. But Donald sprang up from the bench, and, followed by the noisy old Nero, ran out of the room, across the basement-hall, and through the back-door, before Lydia had time to reply.
"Who was it, Liddy?" asked Dorry, still looking toward the empty window, while Nero came sauntering back as though the matter that had lured him forth had not been worth the trouble of following up.
"Oh, no one, dearie," said Lydia, with assumed carelessness; "that is, no one in particular. It's just a man. Well, as I was saying, your Aunt Kate wasn't only the light of the house, she was the heart of the house, too, the very heart. It was dreary enough after she went off to England, poor darling."
"Yes, yes, go on," urged Dorry, earnestly, at the same time wondering at her brother's hasty departure. "Go on, Liddy, that's a dear. I can repeat it all to Donald, you know."
"There isn't any more, Miss Dorry. That's the end of the first part of the story. You know the second well enough, poor child, and sad enough it is."
"Yes," said Dorry, in a low tone, "but tell me the rest of the beginning."
"Why, what do you mean, Miss Dorry? There's nothing else to tell,—that is, nothing that I got ear of. I suppose there were letters and so on; in fact, I know there were, for many a time I brought Mr. George's mail in to him. That day, I took the letters and papers to Mr. G. in the library,—poor, lonely gentleman he looked!—and then I went down to my kitchen fire (I was in the housework then), and some minutes after, when I'd been putting on coal and poking it up bright, it kind o' struck me that the master's bell had been ringing. Up I hurried, but when I reached the library, he was gone out, and no one was there but Nero (yes, you, old doggie!), lying before the fire, as if he owned the house. And that's the end of the first part, so far as I know."
"Yes," persisted Dorothy; "but I want to hear more about what happened before that. I know about our poor papa dying abroad, and about the wreck, and how our mamma and—"
She could not go on. Often she could speak of all this without crying; but the poor girl had been strained and excited all the afternoon, and now, added to the sorrow that surged through her heart at the sudden thought of the parents whom she could not even remember, came the certainty that again she was to be disappointed. It was evident, from Lydia's resolute though kindly face, that she did not mean to tell any more of the first half of the story.