She found her in an old wooden out-house, that went by the name of the dairy, busily skimming a great bowl of yellow cream, with the inevitable grey shawl pinned round her, and a little drawn grey hood tied over her curls.
When she caught sight of her visitor she dropped her spoon, and came clattering over the brick floor in her little clogs.
"Dear, dear, it is never you, Miss Marriott! and not a wink of sleep have I got all night with thinking of you and those poor creatures at Church-Stile House; but there, there, I must not upset you," went on the little woman breathlessly, reaching up on tiptoe to kiss her.
"Dear Miss Cosie, I knew how glad you would be."
"Glad! I couldn't coin the word that would express my feeling. I seem as though I were made of india-rubber, I feel so drawn out and expanded with sheer happiness. It is a mountain that is lifted off me and Christopher, that's what it is," continued the soft-hearted little creature, wiping her eyes, and dimpling all over her round bright face. "Dear, dear, to think that you are a rich woman, and all the rest of it."
"Now, Miss Cosie, remember this is a great secret," began Queenie solemnly.
"My dear, I wouldn't breathe a word to a soul not if it were to save my life. Didn't Christopher tell me all about it last night, sitting there in his big chair, looking so good and beautiful, more fit to be lifted straight up to heaven, as I always say, than to be down here in father's big elbow chair, and with the tears all but running down his cheeks, so that he had to take off his spectacles to wipe them."
"But, Miss Cosie—"
"And to begin in that joking way, too," went on Miss Cosie, too intent on her reminiscences to heed the interruption. "'Well, Charlotte, my dear,'—I hardly thought I should be deceived at my time of life in this bare-faced manner,—'what do you think this sly little puss of a schoolmistress has been doing?' that's how he began."
"I wish I had been behind the door."