“He and the cookies skipped, I guess, while you were reading that long letter,” Florence explained. “Who is it from, mother?”
Mrs. Forman looked down at the closely written pages and sighed, as she answered: “It is from Aunt Caroline, and it is all about your Aunt Elsie; she wants us to let her come here.”
“Aunt Elsie!” Florence exclaimed.
“Oh, mother!” from Jean.
Then Ray: “Why, mother, what is the matter?”
“It is a long story, girls, going back before you were born; but the part that concerns us now is simple enough. The woman who has lived with Aunt Elsie for years, and cared for her like a daughter, has recently died, and there must be an entire change of arrangements.”
“Well,” Florence said, after an ominous silence, “why should that make it—what about Aunt Caroline? Why doesn’t she look after her own sister?”
“Company,” she says. “Two of her husband’s relatives to stay through the fall, one for all winter, perhaps. Besides, she has no suitable downstairs room; and there are half a dozen other reasons; the main one, I imagine, being that she doesn’t want her.”
“Neither do we,” murmured Jean, but no one noticed her, and Mrs. Forman continued.
“Those sisters have not been together, except for a few hours at long intervals, since they were young girls, and they seem to have nothing in common.”