Part 27 (1/2)
Lucy moved toward the door; then turning she remarked gently:
”I'm so sorry, Aunt Ellen.”
”Eh?”
”I'm sorry you're ill.”
”Are you?” questioned the old woman, searching the girl's face with her small, flinty eyes. ”Mebbe you are. You generally tell the truth. I guess if you do feel so, you're the only one; an' I don't quite see how even you can be.”
”I am.”
Her aunt fingered the sheet nervously.
”You're a good girl, Lucy,” she presently observed in a weary tone. ”You won't lose nothin' by it, neither.”
Embarra.s.sed, her niece started from the room.
”Come back here a minute,” muttered the woman drowsily. ”I want to speak to you.”
Lucy recrossed the threshold and bent over Ellen, who had sunk back on the pillows and was beckoning to her with a feeble, exhausted hand.
”You'll stay by me, won't you?” she pleaded in a whisper, for the first time displaying a consciousness of her helpless, dependent condition.
”Promise you won't desert me. I'm leavin' you the place an' ten thousand dollars.”
CHAPTER XIII
MELVINY ARRIVES
When Lucy descended to the kitchen she was surprised to be confronted by Jane Howe.
”Martin told us your aunt was sick, so I came over to see what I could do,” said the visitor softly. ”I reckon you're all up in a heap. Sickness makes a sight of trouble. I know what it is 'cause I've had it. Let me take right hold and put the kitchen to rights for you.”
The words were hearty with sincerity, and the woman's intention of rendering neighborly a.s.sistance genuine, for she promptly produced a large pinafore from under her arm and proceeded to put it on.
”You're just as good as you can be,” Lucy exclaimed. ”But indeed I couldn't think of letting you do my work, especially on such a hot day as this.”
”Why not? Didn't I just tell you I came to help? If you wasn't to let me lend a hand when you were in a tight place, I'd feel it warn't kind of you,” protested Jane, aggrieved. ”Fetch the broom, an' I'll go straight to sweepin' up. My, but you have a fine big kitchen here, haven't you?”
As she rolled up her sleeves she glanced about.
”It's a monstrous house though,” she went on a minute later. ”You'll never be able to do all there'll be to do now, unless you have help. Let alone the work, you never can manage to lift your aunt by yourself. I reckon you'll have to send for Melviny Grey.”
”And who, pray, is she?”
”Melviny? Ain't you never heard of Melviny?”
Jane regarded Lucy with astonishment.
”No.”
”Oh, well, that's because you warn't born and raised here,” she explained.