The door swung open so quietly and easily that she nearly fell over backward.—Page [63].
Molly’s heart was beating very fast as she crossed the hall to the dark room, which Grandma used for storing trunks and boxes. There was no one to see her, for both the servants were in the kitchen, and she and Maud had the upper part of the house quite to themselves. The trunk-room was not locked, and she made her way amid various impediments, to the heavy door, which she had always known communicated with the adjoining house. Old Dr. Winslow had had it made in days gone by, when the house next door had belonged to his only brother, of whom he was very fond. This brother had died before the children came to New York, and although the house still belonged to the Winslow family, it had been rented to a lady, who took boarders, much to the disgust of Grandma and Aunt Kate, who looked upon a boarding-house as a blot on the neighborhood. Molly was telling herself that her little sister must have made a mistake. It did not seem possible that the communicating door could have been left unfastened all these years, without the fact having been discovered. With a trembling hand she turned the knob. The door stuck a little, and she was just about to turn away, convinced that Maud had dreamed the whole thing, when suddenly the door swung open, so quietly and easily, that, in her astonishment, she nearly fell over backward.
There, sure enough, was the closet, just as Maud had described it. Molly fairly gasped, and in that one moment everything else was forgotten in the excitement of the wonderful discovery she had made. She did not shrink back, as Maud had done, but pushing her way through brooms and brushes, and stumbling over various articles on the floor, reached another door, which she opened, and the next moment she had stepped out into a hall, which was exactly like the hall of their own top floor.
It was very quiet, and there was no one to be seen. Molly closed the closet door softly, and stood looking about her. There were four rooms on the floor, and all the doors were closed. The singing lady’s room was in the front, she knew, and after one moment’s hesitation, she stepped boldly forward, and knocked.
“Come in,” called a pleasant voice, and there was a sound as of some piece of furniture being moved rapidly along the floor. Before Molly could quite make up her mind to turn the handle, the door was opened from the inside, and a little lady in a wheel-chair suddenly confronted her.
She was such a tiny lady that for the first moment Molly thought she must be a child, but when the pleasant voice spoke again, it sounded oddly familiar.
“Won’t you come in?” she said, and the face that looked at Molly from the wheel-chair was so very sweet and winning, that half her embarrassment melted away at once.
“I hope you’ll excuse me for coming,” she faltered, “but—but, you see, we live next door, and my little sister is sick. We can hear you sing through the wall, and we all love it. My sister wants me to ask if you won’t please sing ‘Only an Armor-Bearer,’ because it’s her favorite hymn.”
“Come right in,” said the lady, hospitably, “and would you mind closing the door? The halls are rather chilly.”
Molly complied, and found herself in a room exactly like their own nursery on the other side of the wall. Indeed, the two houses had been built at the same time, and were alike in every particular. It was evidently used as both bed and sitting-room, for a piano stood between the windows, and by the empty fireplace stood a small mahogany bookcase well filled with rather shabby-looking books. The room might have been more tidy, for the bed was still unmade, and on the table was a tray containing the remains of a breakfast, but the lady herself was as neat as possible, although her blue wrapper was somewhat faded, and the slippers on the little feet that hung helplessly over the edge of the wheel-chair had long ago lost their first freshness.