"
"Ain't she?" returned Mandy enthusiastically, as Johnnie of the "quare
notions" helped Mavity Bence upstairs with the one small trunk belonging
to Laurella.
"Look out for that trunk, Johnnie," came her mother's caution, with a
girlish ripple of laughter in the tones. "Hit's a borried one. Now don't
you roach up and git mad. I had obliged to have a trunk, bein' wedded
and comin' down to the settlement this-a-way. I only borried Mildred
Faidley's. She won't never have any use for it. Evelyn Toler loaned me
the trimmin' o' this hat--ain't it sightly?"
Johnnie's distressed eyes met the pale gaze of Aunt Mavity across the
little oilcloth-covered coffer.
"I would 'a' told you, Johnnie," said the poor woman deprecatingly, "but
I never knowed it myself till late last night, and I hadn't the heart to
name it at breakfast. I thort I'd git a chance this evenin', but they
come sooner'n I was expectin' 'em."
"Never mind, Aunt Mavity," said Johnnie. "When I get a little used to it
I'll be glad to have them all here. I--I wish Uncle Pros was able to
know folks."
The children were fed, Milo, touchingly subdued and apologetic, nestling
close to his sister's side and whispering to her how he had tried to get
ma to wait and come down to the Settlement, and hungrily begging with
his pathetic childish eyes for her to say that this thing which had come
upon them was not, after all, the calamity he feared.
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