Mrs. Upjohn shook her head.

"And he left them without any money? I thought he stole it."

"I don't think so. Doctor Sanderson kept them afloat for some time, I believe, until Patty asked Sally here. Then he got Mrs. Ladue into Doctor Galen's hospital."

"M-m," Letty murmured slowly. She had a needle between her lips or she would have said "o-oh." She removed the needle for the purpose of speech. "So that's Doctor Sanderson's connection with the Ladues. I always wondered. It might have been 'most anything. His sister's up and coming. She'll have d.i.c.k Torrington if he don't look out. She's made the most of her visit."

Letty's murmur might have meant much or it might have meant nothing at all. At all events, Mrs. Upjohn let it go unchallenged, possibly because her curiosity was aroused by what Letty said later. She asked no questions, however. She only waited, receptively, for further communications on the subject of Henrietta and d.i.c.k. Miss Lambkin did not vouchsafe further information on that subject, but immediately branched off upon another.

"I'm told," she said, with the rapidity of mental change that marked her intellectual processes, "that John Hazen's house was in an awful state the morning after the fire. I went around there as soon's ever I could, to see what I could see, but the door was locked and I couldn't get in. I looked in the windows, though, and the furniture's all gone from some of the rooms, even to the carpets. There was a ladder there, and I went up it, and the bedroom was all stripped clean. I couldn't carry the ladder, so I didn't see the others. I made some inquiries and I was told that the furniture was all stored in the stable. That wasn't burned at all, you know. I thought that perhaps Patty'd been and had it moved, though it don't seem hardly like her. It's more like John Hazen himself. But he wasn't able."

Mrs. Upjohn smiled and shook her head. "It wasn't Patty," she replied, "or I should have known it. I guess it was Sally. Perhaps Doctor Sanderson helped, but it is just like Sally. She's a great hand to take hold and do things."

"You don't tell me!" said Miss Lambkin. "But I don't suppose she did it with her own hands. I shouldn't wonder," she remarked, "if she'd find some good place to board, the first thing you know. She might go to Miss Miller's. She could take 'em, I know, but she wouldn't have room for Doctor Sanderson, only Sally and her mother and Charlie.

Charlie's a pup, that's what he is. But I can't see, for the life of me, what Doctor Sanderson keeps hanging around here for. Why don't he go home?"

Not knowing, Mrs. Upjohn, for a wonder, did not undertake to say. Miss Lambkin hazarded the guess that the doctor might be sparking around Sally; but Mrs. Upjohn did not seem to think so.

"Well," Letty went on, "I wonder what the Hazens'll do. It'd cost an awful sight to repair that house; almost as much as to build a new one. What insurance did you hear they had? Has Patty said?--This skirt is about ready to try on, Alicia. I want to drape it real nice. Can't you stand on the table?"

She spread a folded newspaper on the top of the table.

"There! Now, you won't mar the top. Take your skirt right off and climb up."

Mrs. Upjohn was a heavy woman and she obeyed with some difficulty.

Miss Lambkin continued in her pursuit of information while she draped the skirt.

"You haven't answered about the insurance, Alicia. What did Patty say about it? I don't suppose Patty'd know exactly and I wouldn't trust her guess anyway. John Hazen never seemed to, to any extent. Patty's kind o' flighty, isn't she, and cracked on the men, although you wouldn't think it from her highty-tighty manner. She used to think she was going to marry Meriwether Beatty, I remember. Land! He had no more idea of marrying her than I had. And she's been cracked on every man that's more'n spoken to her since. She's got the symptoms of nervous prostration; all the signs of it. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if she went crazy, one o' these days. If Doctor Sanderson is looking for patients for his sanitarium he needn't look any farther. Patty's it.

Turn around, Alicia. I don't get a good light on the other side. Why, Patty's--"

Mrs. Upjohn had heard the front door shut. "Sh-h-h!" she cautioned.

"Here's Patty now."

They heard Patty come slowly up the stairs and, although there were no sounds of it, she seemed to be weeping.

"Now, I wonder," whispered Miss Lambkin, "what's the matter. Do you s'pose her--"

"Sh, Letty! She'll hear you. I'll get down and go to her."

"Without a skirt, Alicia?"

But Mrs. Upjohn did not heed. She got down from the table, clumsily enough, and went to the door. Patty had just pa.s.sed it.

"Patty!" Mrs. Upjohn called softly. "Is there anything the matter?"

Patty turned a miserable, tear-stained face. "It--it's all o-over,"

she said dully.

"Your father?" asked Mrs. Upjohn. She spoke in an awe-struck whisper in spite of herself. Did not Death deserve such an att.i.tude?

Patty nodded silently. "I'm so sorry, Patty," Mrs. Upjohn's sympathy was genuine. "I _am_ so sorry."

"Oh, Alicia," Patty cried in a burst of grief, "my father's d-dead."

Mrs. Upjohn folded ample arms about her and patted her on the shoulder as if she had been a child. "There, there, Patty! I'm just as sorry as I can be; and so will everybody be as soon as they hear of it. But you just cry as much as you want to. It'll do you good."

So they stood, Mrs. Upjohn unmindful of the fact that she had no skirt and Patty crying into a lavender silk shoulder.

"Land!" The voice was the voice of Miss Lambkin and it proceeded from the doorway. "I'm awfully sorry to hear your father's dead, Patty. How did--"

Patty lifted her head majestically from the lavender silk shoulder.

"My grief is sacred," she murmured; and fled to her room.

"Mercy me!" muttered Miss Lambkin. "I didn't have my kid gloves on. I ought to have known better'n to speak to Patty without 'em. You may as well come back, Alicia," she continued in a louder voice, "and finish with that skirt. Perhaps, now, you'll be wanting a new black dress.

Your old one's pretty well out of fashion."

She filled her mouth with pins while Mrs. Upjohn again mounted the table.

Mrs. Upjohn shook her head slowly. "No," she answered, "I guess the old one will do for a while yet. I shouldn't want one for anything but the funeral anyway, and you couldn't begin to get one done by that time. It would be different if it was a relative."

"It's curious," remarked Miss Lambkin, as well as she could with her mouth full of pins, "how things go. Now, there's many of our relatives--mine, anyway--that we could spare as well as not; better than some of those that are no kin to us. And we have to wear black for them and try to look sorry. Black isn't becoming to some, but it seems to me you'd look full as well in it as you do in that lavender, and that place on your shoulder where Patty cried tears is going to show anyway. But, as I was going to say, a man like John Hazen is going to be missed. I wonder who was there, at his death-bed. Patty, of course, and Sally Ladue, I s'pose, and maybe Mrs. Ladue and Meriwether Beatty. Sally was real fond of her Uncle John and he of her. It's my opinion that Sally'll be sorrier than Patty will. Come right down to it, Patty isn't so broken-hearted as she likes to think, though she'll miss him."

To this Mrs. Upjohn agreed, but Letty did not wait for her reply.

"And I wonder," she went on, working rapidly while she talked, "how much he's left. Patty hasn't said, I s'pose. I don't s'pose she'd have much of an idea anyway, and I don't know's anybody could tell until his business is all settled up. He had quite a number of vessels, and it seems a great pity that there isn't anybody to take his business up where he left it. He did well with it, I'm told. It's my guess that you'll find that John Hazen's left Sally a good big slice."

"I hope so, with all my heart." Mrs. Upjohn spoke cordially, as she did invariably of Sally.

"My!" Letty exclaimed with an antic.i.p.atory squeal of delight.

"Wouldn't it put Patty in a proper temper if he had! Now, Alicia," she said, standing back and looking the skirt up and down, "we'll call that skirt right. It hangs well, if I do say it. Take it off and I'll finish it right up. You can come down now."

CHAPTER VII

Miss Lambkin was right. Sally found a place to board--a nice place, to quote Letty Lambkin, although it was not Miss Miller's. No doubt Letty was sorry that Sally had not chosen Miss Miller's, for Miss Miller was an especial friend of Letty's; and, by choosing another place, Sally had cut off, at a blow, a most reliable source of information. Very possibly Sally did not think of this, but if she had, it would have been but one more argument in favor of her choice, for Mrs. Stump couldn't bear Letty, and she had vowed that she should never darken her door. Letty would not have darkened the door very much. She was a thin little thing. But, if Sally did not think of it, Letty did, and she regretted it. She even went so far as to mention it to Mrs.

Upjohn.

"If Sally Ladue thinks she's getting ahead of me," she said, with sharp emphasis, "she'll find she's mistaken. I have my sources of information."

Mrs. Upjohn did not reprove her. She had an inordinate thirst for information which did not concern her, and Letty was the most unfailing source of it. So she only smiled sympathetically and said nothing. She was sorry to be deprived of such accurate information about Sally as Miss Miller would have supplied, but she still had Patty. In fact, Mrs. Upjohn was beginning to wonder how much longer she was to have Patty. Patty seemed to have no thought of going.

Indeed, she would not have known where to go. Patty was entering upon some brand-new experiences, rather late in life. Already she was beginning to miss the pendulum.

Before Sally took this step which seemed to be so much more important to others than to herself, various things had happened, of which Miss Lambkin could have had no knowledge, even with her reliable sources of information. Everett Morton had had an interview with his mother, at her request. He would not have sought an interview, for he had a premonition of the subject of it.

Mrs. Morton was one of those rare women whom wealth had not spoiled; that is, not wholly; not very much, indeed. There was still left a great deal of her natural self, and that self was sweet and kind and yielding enough, although, on occasions, she could be as decided as she thought necessary. This was one of the occasions. The interview was nearly over. It had been short and to the point, which concerned Sally.