Part 5 (1/2)
Nancy's spirits were soaring; instinctively she felt that she had won B'lindy! It was a good beginning. She opened the great oak door and stepped out upon the path. At one time the grounds of Happy House must have been pretentious--they were quaintly beautiful now in their age and half-neglect. Flowering perennials had crept out from their old beds and had spread unchecked around among the giant trunks of the trees so that from hedge to hedge there was a riot of color.
Among the gay blossoms Nancy picked her way, skirting the walls of the house to discover what might lie beyond. In the back she found Jonathan pottering among some raspberry bushes that bordered the flagged walk. He was very bent and very old and very wrinkled; his eyes twitched and blinked as he lifted his head to look at her.
”Good afternoon! I am Anne Leavitt,” Nancy called blithely. He was such a perfect part of the old, old garden that she loved him on the spot.
”Wal, wal--little Anne Leavitt,” and he nodded and blinked at her.
”I wish you'd call me Nancy,” Nancy ventured. ”Everyone does, and I don't seem nearly big enough to be Anne. I love your flowers and oh, what a lot of berries you are going to have!”
The old man straightened his shoulders--at least he tried to! His flowers were his children.
”In my younger days this here garden was the show of the Island,” he answered proudly. ”Folks come from all round to look at it!
Thirty-two kinds of posies and that want countin' the hollyhocks that grew like trees--taller'n I am. And vines and berries and vegetables.
But I can't work like I used to, and Miss Sabriny don't like anyone but me to touch things. So things have to go abit. Miss Nancy, huh! Ye _are_ a little thing.” But his smile was kindly. ”And I hope ye bring some suns.h.i.+ne to Happy House.”
Suddenly Nancy exclaimed: ”Oh--the lake! I didn't realize how close we were to it.”
Beyond the raspberry patch and the kitchen garden stretched an old orchard. Through the trees Nancy had glimpsed the sapphire blue of Lake Champlain.
”Is that orchard ours?” she asked Jonathan.
”That it is. I helped my father plant those thar trees myself and they're the best bearin' on the hul of Nor' Hero!”
Nancy stood irresolute. She wanted to explore further--to run out among the apple trees to the very cliff of the lake. But she was bursting to write to Claire--there was already so much to tell her.
So with one long, lingering look she retraced her steps back to the house. As she pa.s.sed slowly under the trees she was startled by the movement of a single slat in one of the upstairs blinds. And instinctively she knew that an eye peeped at her from behind it.
Miss Milly--it must, of course, be the ”poor Miss Milly” of whom Webb had spoken!
Nancy closed the front door softly behind her that it might not disturb Miss Sabrina's hour of rest. Then she tiptoed up the long stairway.
It took but a moment's calculating to decide which door led to the room where the blind had opened. She stopped before it and tapped gently with one knuckle.
”Come in,” a voice answered.
Opening the door, Nancy walked into a room the counterpart of her own, except that a couch was drawn before the blinded windows. And against it half-lay a frail little woman with snow-white hair and tired eyes, shadowing a face that still held a trace of youth.
As Nancy hesitated on the threshold a voice singularly sweet called to her:
”Come in, my dear! I am your Aunt Milly.”
CHAPTER IV
AUNT MILLY
”So this is Anne Leavitt!”
But Aunt Milly did not say it at all like Aunt Sabrina, or even crisply, like B'lindy's ”so _you're_ the niece,” but with a warm, little trill in her voice that made Nancy feel as though she was very, very glad to have her there!
Two frail little hands caught Nancy's and squeezed them in such a human way that Nancy leaned over impulsively and kissed Miss Milly on her cheek.