At a sign from Miss Saxon, Elsie took the questioning into her own hands. She described the table to begin with.
Mrs. Dodge was bland and civil. She had taken the house of her aunt, an old lady who was getting too infirm to attend to lodgers. It was filled from top to bottom with the most hideous old things, and she had put them all into the broker's hands. She fancied she remembered the table, but could not be certain; there were a good many queer old tables.
No; she had never heard the name of Penn. But she had a young sister who knew all her aunt's friends better than she did. She should be called.
The sister was called, and proved to be a young and smiling copy of Mrs. Dodge. She remembered that she had once seen Mrs. Penn, about two years ago. Mrs. Penn was a small spare woman about fifty. Yes; Mrs. Penn had let lodgings somewhere—she didn't know where—and her aunt had bought some of her furniture. There was an old table with claw-feet, among other things.
"Was the aunt living now?" Elsie asked.
"Oh, yes; she was living at Winchfield," the girl answered. But she was deaf and rather cross, and it was a hard matter to make her understand anything. "Mrs. Tryon, Stone Cottage, Winchfield, near the railway station."
Elsie wrote the address in her note-book, and left Dashwood Street with hope renewed.
"We are getting nearer to the goal," she said brightly. "You see now that Mrs. Penn is a real person."
"And if Mrs. Penn is real, then Meta and Harold and Jamie are real also," Miss Saxon replied. "Yes, I think you have proved that they are not mere phantoms."
"And that is proving a good deal in a world which is full of uncertainties," Elsie cried. "Don't laugh at me, Miss Saxon; I hear a voice calling me to go on! You cannot hear it, I know, but you must trust to my ears."