Ruth kissed her, with real feeling. “Thank you so much, Aunty. It will be lovely to have something that was my grandmother's.”
When she went back to Winfield, he was absorbed in a calculation he was making on the back of an envelope.
“You're not to use your eyes,” she said warningly, “and, oh Carl! It was my grandmother's and she's given us every bit of it, and you're to stay to supper!”
“Must be in a fine humour,” he observed. “I'm ever so glad. Come here, darling, you don't know how I've missed you.”
“I've been earning furniture,” she said, settling down beside him. “People earn what they get from Aunty—I won't say that, though, because it's mean.”
“Tell me about this remarkable furniture. What is it, and how much of it is destined to glorify our humble cottage?”
“It's all ours,” she returned serenely, “but I don't know just how much there is. I didn't look at it closely, you know, because I never expected to have any of it. Let's see—there's a heavy dresser, and a large, round table, with claw feet—that's our dining-table, and there's a bed, just like those in the windows in town, when it's done over, and there's a big old-fashioned sofa, and a spinning-wheel—”
“Are you going to spin?”
“Hush, don't interrupt. There are five chairs—dining-room chairs, and two small tables, and a card table with a leaf that you can stand up against the wall, and two lovely rockers, and I don't know what else.”
“That's a fairly complete inventory, considering that you 'didn't look at it closely.' What a little humbug you are!”