Part 18 (1/2)

Christopher said his good-bye very politely but very briefly.

”Please, grandmother,” he said, ”will you wait for me a minute? I've got to speak to Bill Carpenter about some very important business.”

He bolted around the corner of the house and Jane's lip quivered. She felt suddenly offended. What important business could Christopher have that he had not confided to her?

After their guests had gone, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones drew Letty down to a low stool beside her chair and said:

”My dear, has any one ever told you that you sing very well?”

Letty flushed crimson with surprise and delight.

”Oh, do I?” she cried. ”I'd rather be able to sing than anything in this wide, wide world! It is so wonderful! But n.o.body ever told me I could sing. I have never had any lessons, you know.”

”And did you never sing to any of your teachers, in school or Sunday-school?”

”There was never any singing at school, except among a few of the bigger girls who took private lessons. And at Sunday-school I did not care for the singing much. They sang 'regular shouters' as Kit calls them,” she laughed.

”But sometimes in church-the church I told you about, where the little boys sang-I used to join in a little, sometimes. Once they were singing such a beautiful hymn. It was in the afternoon when there were not very many people in the church and the music was so lovely, all high and sweet and soft! I forgot for a minute where I was and sang out quite loud. The organist turned right around and looked at me. It frightened me terribly for I thought perhaps it was against the rules for any one but the small boys to sing and that some one might come and put me out.

Indeed, I was afraid to go to church again for three or four Sundays, and when I did I always kept at the back of the church and did not sing again. But it could not have been against the rule, for a great many people joined in the singing and the organist did not look at them at all.”

Mrs. Hartwell-Jones did not tell her, what was so evident to herself, that the organist had been attracted, not by the child's loud singing, but by the quality of her voice.

”Would you like to take singing lessons when we go back to town?” she asked presently.

”Oh, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, would it be possible?”

”Not only possible, but it could be done very easily, my child. We shall talk about it some other time. Now, I have some plans to suggest for Sally's birthday party. We must invite Anna Parsons and there must be a cake.”

”With candles,” agreed Letty, bringing her mind away from the singing with difficulty.

”I should like to make Sally a present, too,” went on Mrs.

Hartwell-Jones. ”Do you suppose we could buy a toy bed at the 'store'?

It would be nice to make a pretty bed for Sally to rest in when she comes to spend the afternoon.”

”And I could make the bedclothes. I love to sew,” cried Letty. ”My mother taught me; hemming, overcasting-a great many things.”

”You must have had a very good, sweet mother, Letty.”

”Oh, yes!” breathed the girl, and her brown eyes filled suddenly with great tears.

The tears came to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones's eyes, too, and she caught Letty to her arms in a long, close embrace.

”You have no mother and I have no little girl!” she whispered brokenly.

That evening Mrs. Hartwell-Jones wrote a very long letter to the lawyer in the city who had always managed her business for her. She glanced often at Letty as she wrote, but the little girl, busy over a puzzling problem in arithmetic, did not even dream of the wonderful ways in which that letter would change her life.

CHAPTER XIII

THE TULIP'S DREAM