Dora laughed, and kept her own counsel. She did not choose to tell them that during those trying days no hint of it had come to her. That was their pretty family secret, with which outsiders were not to intermeddle.
They agreed, every one of them, that Dora made a charming young hostess, and Estelle Mitchell said she was glad she was back in her old home, for she just fitted.
There are but two things which remain to tell you. One grew out of Ruth Jennings' farewell words to her beloved music-teacher, spoken while she was half-laughing, half-crying, and wholly heart-broken:
"But the organ does squeak horribly; you know it does; and it is always getting out of tune."
Mr. Chessney heard it, and during their wedding-trip he said to his wife:
"There is one thing I want you to help me select. I have not made my thank-offering yet to that blessed little church where I found you. It must have an organ that will keep in tune, and that will worthily commemorate the harmony that was begun there."
Imagine, please, for I shall not attempt to tell you, the delight, to say nothing of the unspeakable wonder, of the girls, and of the entire community, when the beautifully-finished, exquisitely-toned bit of mechanism was set up in the church.
Accompanying it were two organ stools, one for the church and one for Ruth Jennings' home; so she sits on dictionaries and Patent Office Reports no more.
The other item can be told more briefly. It is embodied in a sentence which the gentle mother spoke one morning at the breakfast-table: