The Wall Between Part 20

"Well!" piped Ellen, after waiting a moment.

"Well, what?" Lucy asked.

"Ain't you got no interest in what I'm goin' for?" the woman demanded querulously.

"I'm always interested in anything you wish to tell me," answered the girl, "but I thought it was not my place to inquire into your business."

"It is my business, an' I can keep it to myself," said Ellen tartly. "But I'll tell you this much--I'm goin' to get my will made."

The hard blue eyes fixed themselves on Lucy's face narrowly.

"My will!" repeated Ellen, a challenge in her tone. "I s'pose you thought it was all made long ago; but it warn't. I'm goin' to make it to-day."

At a loss how to reply, Lucy nodded.

"You don't seem much concerned 'bout it," observed her aunt peevishly.

"Ain't you curious to know who I'm goin' to leave my property to?"

"No."

"You ain't!"

"No."

"S'pose I was to give it all to you."

"That would be very kind."

"Yes, it would be--it would be kind," agreed Ellen. "But mebbe I ain't a-goin' to. Mebbe I'm goin' to will it to somebody else."

"That's your affair."

"I'll bet, for all your indifference, you'd be mad as a wet hen if I was to leave it to somebody else," went on the woman provokingly.

"No, I shouldn't. Why should I?"

"'Cause you're my next of kin. By rights it had oughter come to you, hadn't it?"

"I don't know the New Hamps.h.i.+re laws."

With an admiring glance at her niece, Ellen broke into an unpleasant laugh.

"There's no trappin' you, Miss Lucy Webster, is there?" she exclaimed, rising from her chair and clapping on her hat. "You're a cute one, an awful cute one!"

"Why?"

"Oh, you don't need to be told," chuckled Ellen. "Anybody as cute as you are, _knows._"

With that she was gone.

All the morning the girl busied herself within doors, exchanging one duty for another. Toward noon, however, she made an excursion to the garden for lettuce and radishes. Her pathway lay close to the wall, and on her return to the house she was amazed to see lying on the topmost stone of the ruined heap a mammoth bunch of sweet peas. There was no mistaking the fact that the flowers were intended for her, for her name had been hastily scrawled on a bit of crumpled paper and placed beside them. Nothing could have surprised her more than to stumble upon this offering.

Evidently the blossoms had just been gathered, for the raindrops of the previous night still sparkled among their petals, jeweling with brilliancy their kaleidoscopic riot of color.

She caught them up with delight, burying her face in their cool fragrance.

Where had they come from? She knew no one who raised sweet peas,--no one except the Howes, and of course----she halted and blushed. Could it have been the Howes?

"_Mary's are white_" she heard herself automatically repeating in Jane's phrases. "_'Liza's pink, an' mine are purple. Martin has his in another place, 'cause he likes all the colors mixed together. But he never picks his nor lets us. He says he likes to see 'em growin'._"

And now, by some miracle, here were the blossoms of Martin's raising, their prismatic tints exquisite as a sunset. It was like holding the rainbow in one's hands. She knew the Howes too well to cherish for an instant the illusion that any of the three sisters had cut the flowers from the vines. They would not have dared. No. No hand but Martin's had plucked them.

With a strange fluttering of her heart, Lucy carried the bouquet to her own room, a corner of the house where Ellen seldom intruded. There she bent over it with a happy, triumphant little smile. Then, from behind the shelter of the muslin curtain, she blew a kiss from her finger tips to Mr. Martin Howe, who was hoeing potatoes on the hill, with his back set squarely toward the Webster mansion.

When Ellen returned at noon, there was still a sh.e.l.l-like flush of pink on the girl's cheek and on her lips a smile for which her aunt could not account.

"Where you been?" inquired the woman suspiciously.

"Nowhere. Why?"

"You look as if somebody'd sent you a Christmas tree full of presents."

Lucy laughed softly.

"You ain't been to the Howes'?"

"I haven't been anywhere," repeated Lucy, throwing up her chin. "I'm telling the truth."

Ellen eyed her shrewdly.

"Yes, I reckon you are," she observed slowly. "I ain't never caught you lyin' yet." Then as if an afterthought had occurred to her, she added: "Likely you've been thinkin' 'bout the will I've been makin'."

She saw Lucy open her lips, then close them.

"I've got it all done," went on Ellen audaciously. "It's drawn up, signed, an' sealed. In fact, I brought it home with me. Here it is."

Tossing a large white envelope fastened with a splash of red wax upon the table, she peered at her niece.

"I'm goin' to give it to you to keep," continued she in a hectoring tone.

"It'll be like havin' Pandora's box around. You can't open it, an' you'll have the continual fun of wonderin' what's inside."

"I'd rather not take it."

"But I want you to," a.s.serted Ellen. "I'm givin' it to you to take care of. It'll help to make life interestin'. Besides, who knows but you may be tempted to break it open some night an' have a peep inside."

Craftily the old woman watched the girl.

"Or mebbe you'll tear it up," she mused. "Who knows? Then if I was to die, you could pretend I hadn't made no will."

"Take it back. I shan't keep it," Lucy cried, moving toward the door.