"No. Thank the good Lord, I don't. And as I say, I blame myself for ever mentioning it before you gals."

"'Little pitchers have big ears,'" quoted Agnes.

At that Dot flared up. "I'm not a little pitcher! And I haven't got big ears!" The smallest Corner House girl knew now that her ill-timed remarks during her first call with Tess on Mrs. Eland had, somehow, made trouble. "How'd I know that Lem--Lemon Aden's brother was Mrs.

Eland's father? He might have been her uncle."

They had to laugh at Dot's vehement defense; but Mr. Bob Buckham went on: "My fault, I tell ye--my fault. But I believe it's going to be all cleared up."

"How?" asked Agnes, quickly.

"And will my Mrs. Eland feel better in her mind?" Tess asked gravely.

"That's what she will," declared the farmer, vigorously. "She told me about the old papers and the book left by her Uncle Lemuel over there to the Quoharis poorfarm where he died. I got a letter from her to the townfarm keeper, and I drove over and got 'em the other day.

"Like ter not got 'em at all--old Lem being dead nigh fifteen years now.

Wal! Marm and me's been looking over that little book. Lem mebbe was a leetle crazy--'specially 'bout money matters, and toward the end of his life. You'd think, to read what he'd writ down, that he died possessed of a lot of property instead of being town's poor. That was his foolishness.

"But 'way back, when he was a much younger man, and his brother Abe got scart over a trick he'd played about a horse trade and went West (the man who was tricked threatened to do him bodily harm), what old Lem wrote in that old diary was easy enough understood.

"There's some letters from Abe, too. Put two and two together,"

concluded Mr. Buckham, "and it's easy to see where my pap's five hundred dollars went to. It was left by Abe all right in Lem's hands; but it stuck to them hands!"

"Oh!" cried Agnes, "what a wicked man that Lemuel Aden must have been."

"Nateral born miser. Hated ter give up a penny he didn't hafter give up.

But them two women--wonderful how they come together after all these years--them two women needn't worry their souls no longer about that five hundred dollars. I never heard as folks could be held accountable for their uncle's sins."

That was the way the old farmer made Mrs. Eland see it, too. After all, she could only be grateful to the two smallest Corner House girls for bringing her and her sister together.

"If I had not taught Tess the old rhyme:

"'First William, the Norman, Then William, the son,'"

the matron of the Women's and Children's Hospital declared, "and Tess had not recited it in school, Teeny, you would never have remembered it and felt the strange drawing toward me that you did feel."

"And if you hadn't met that child, I have an idea that you'd have lost your position at this hospital--and then where'd we be?" said the convalescent Miss Pepperill, sitting propped up in her chair in the matron's room at the inst.i.tution in question. "That child, Tess, certainly started all the interest now being shown in this hospital."

That Monday night was the first public presentation of the play for the benefit of the hospital. Few were more anxious or more excited before the curtain went up, for the success of _The Carnation Countess_, than the Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil; but there was in store for them in the immediate future much more excitement than this of performing in the play, all of which will be narrated in the next volume of the series, to be ent.i.tled, "The Corner House Girls' Odd Find: Where They Made It; and What the Strange Discovery Led To."

Ruth Kenway felt a share of responsibility for the success of the play, as she naturally would for any matter in which she had even the smallest part. It was Ruth's way to be "c.u.mbered by many cares." Mr. Howbridge sometimes jokingly called her "Martha."

Dot was only desirous of singing her "bee" song with the other children, and then hurrying home where she might continue her work on a wonderful Christmas outfit for her Alice-doll. Alice was to have a "coming out party" during the holiday week, and positively _had_ to have some new clothes. Besides, _The Carnation Countess_ had become rather a stale affair for the smallest Corner House girl by this time.

Tess seriously hoped she would do nothing in her part of Swiftwing, the hummingbird, to detract from the performance. Tess did not take herself at all seriously as an actor; she only desired--as she always did--to do what she had to do, right.

As for Agnes, she was truly filled with delight. The fly-away's very heart and soul was in the character she played. She lived the part of Innocent Delight.

She truly did well in this first performance. No stage fright did she experience. From her first word spoken in the centre of the stage while Madam Shaw was being borne in by the Sedan men, till the last word she spoke in the final act of the play, Agnes Kenway acted her part with credit.

In truth, as a whole, the Milton school pupils did well in the play. The professor's fears were not fulfilled. Milton people did not by any means, laugh the actors out of town.

Instead, the packed house of the first night was repeated on the second evening. The matinee on the third day, which was given at popular prices, was overcrowded--they had to stop selling admission tickets.

While the third and last evening saw a repet.i.tion of the crowds at the other performances.

The local papers gave much s.p.a.ce each day to the benefit, and their criticisms of the amateur players made the hearts of boys and girls alike, glad.

The reports from the ticket office were, after all, the main thing. It was soon seen that a goodly sum would be made for the Women's and Children's Hospital. In the end it amounted to more than three thousand dollars.

"Why, _that_ will give the hospital a new lease of life! Dr. Forsyth said so," Agnes declared at the dinner table the day after the last performance.

"It will pay Mrs. Eland's salary for a long time," Tess remarked, with a sigh of satisfaction.

"I don't know but that sounds rather selfish, after all, dear," Ruth said, smiling at sober little Tess.

"What does, Sister?"

"It seems that all _you_ care about the hospital is that Mrs. Eland shall get her wages."

"Yes. I s'pose that's my special interest in it," admitted Tess, slowly.

"But then, if my Mrs. Eland is there as matron, the hospital is bound to do a great deal of good."

"Oh! wisdom of the ancients!" laughed Agnes.

"Quite true, my dear," commented Mrs. MacCall. "Your Mrs. Eland is a fine woman. I've always said that."

"Everybody doesn't agree with you," said Ruth, smiling.

"Who doesn't like Mrs. Eland?" demanded Tess, quite excited.

"Our neighbor, Sammy Pinkney," Ruth replied, laughing again. "I heard him talking about her this very morning, and what he said was not complimentary."

Tess was quite flushed. "Sammy gave us Billy b.u.mps," she said sternly, "and Billy is a very good goat."

"Except when he eats up poor Seneca Sprague's hair," chuckled Agnes.

"He is a _very_ good goat," repeated Tess. "But if Sammy says my Mrs.

Eland isn't the very nicest lady there is--well--he can take his old goat back--so now!"

"What did he say, Ruthie?" asked Agnes.

"I heard him say that if Mrs. Eland nursed Miss Pepperill so well that she could come back to teach school, when he got to be a pirate he would sail 'way off with Mrs. Eland somewhere and make her walk the plank!"

"If he does such a thing," cried Dot, excitedly, "he _can_ take back his old goat! You know, I don't believe Mrs. Eland could walk a plank, anyway. She isn't an acrobat, like Neale."

"If Sammy Pinkney tries to be a pirate, and carries my Mrs. Eland off in any such horrid way," declared Tess with much energy for her, "I hope his mother spanks him good!"

And with the hilarious laughter that welcomed this speech from Swiftwing, the hummingbird, let us bid farewell to our four Corner House girls.