A NEW LIFE.
(In Three Instalments.)
BY FLORENCE HALLOWELL HOYT.
CHAPTER IV.
When Aunt Patty and Ida went into the house together, Cynthia was not to be seen. She was upstairs in her own room, with the door locked, and when Aunt Patty knocked she answered in a smothered voice that she would be out in a few minutes.
"I don't know what under the canopy can be the matter with Cynthia," said Aunt Patty, when she came down stairs again, after removing her old black straw bonnet and silk cape. "I never knew the child to shut herself up that way before."
Ida said nothing; she was sewing by a window, and did not look up. There was a look of constraint and annoyance on her face.
Cynthia's eyes were swollen and red when she entered the kitchen a few minutes later. It was quite apparent that she had been weeping, and of course Aunt Patty was deeply concerned. She peered at Cynthia over her steel-bowed spectacles, and insisted on knowing what was the matter.