"That was just it; they couldn't tell you that too with all you had to hear about Elma. Elma is very well now, you understand, but Miss Annie--well, Miss Annie is not expected to live over to-night."

The news came to them in an unreal way. It was the break-up of their childhood. That Miss Annie should not always be there, the charming beautiful invalid, seemed impossible.

"Oh, but," said Mabel, "she has been so ill before, won't she get better?"

"She was never ill like this before," said Mrs. Clutterbuck. "We will see what the message says."

They found a wire at home. At the end of a sparkling day, it came to that. While they had listened to these golden voices, Miss Annie had----

The telegram lay there to say that Miss Annie had died.

CHAPTER XXVII

The Home-Coming

Mr. Leighton departed from his first feelings of hurry where Mabel and Jean were concerned, and delayed their home coming till Elma was in a condition not to be r.e.t.a.r.ded by any extra excitement.

They drove away at last from the club early in the morning, so that they had the entire house to see them off. It was very nearly as bad as leaving Ridgetown.

"I shall not be able to walk past your door for some days," said one red-haired girl. "Oh, don't I know that feeling?"

She was compelled to stay in London, with only a fortnight's holiday in summer time.

"I shall send you forget-me-nots by every post," said Jean. "You'll be in love with the new girl in a week."

"I won't," said the red-haired girl.

They had gifts from all of the girls stowed away somewhere. What a morning! Even the hall porter showed signs of dejection at their going.

"It will never be the same without you, miss," he said to Mabel.

One's own family were not so complimentary.

Mabel and Jean left in a heaped-up four-wheeler.

"I feel quite sick, you know," said Jean.

It was a historic statement, and Mabel had her own qualms. They left a houseful of good little friendly people, a dazzling, hard-working London, and they were going back--to the wedding of Isobel. Mabel had not got over the feeling that drama only exists in a brilliant manner in London, and that life in one's own home, though peaceful, was drab colour. It wouldn't be drab colour, it would be radiant of course, if happy unexpected things happened there. How it would lighten to the colour of rose, oh gorgeous life, if such a thing could ever happen now!

But it wouldn't. All that would happen would be that Robin would marry Isobel and that she should keep on playing piano. Ah well, in any case, she could play piano a long way better than she ever did. And Jean could sing with a certain distinction of method. Not nearly ripe, this method, as Jean informed every one, but on the way. Her voice would be worth hearing at twenty-five.

Much of the effect they would make on Ridgetown was invested in the boxes piled above them. All their spare time lately had been taken up in spending their allowance in clothes and panning things neatly out to London standards. It gave them an amount of reliance in themselves and in their return which was very exhilarating. Though what did it all matter with Miss Annie gone?

"It terrifies me to think of Ridgetown without Miss Annie. What shall we do there?" asked Jean mournfully.

"Yes, that's it," replied Mabel. "No one dying in London would make that difference. I shall think, as we are driving home, Miss Annie isn't there. Won't you?"

"And here they would only have a little more time for somebody else,"

said Jean.

They drove through the early morning streets with a tiny relief at their heart. On their next drive they would know everybody they pa.s.sed.

"Oh, how deadly I felt when I came here!" said Jean. "Knowing no one, and thinking that if I died in the cab no one near me would care!"

They reached Ridgetown in the afternoon. A carriage was drawn up at the station gates. In it were Mrs. Leighton, Miss Grace and Elma.

Mabel stood transfixed.

"Oh, Elma," she said, "Elma!"

Elma knew it. She wasn't as fat as a pumpkin after all. And every one had kept on saying that she was fatter than any pumpkin. Mabel was the only one who had told the truth. She leaned over the folded hood of the carriage and hugged her gently.

"I should like to inform you Mabs, I'm as fat as a pumpkin."

But Mabel hung on to the carriage with her head down. No one had told her that Elma had been so ill as this.

Elma had the look of having been in a far country--why hadn't some one told her? Miss Grace, who had been away for some weeks with Adelaide Maud and had just got back in fairly good spirits, did some of the conversing which helped Mabel to recover herself.

Cuthbert and Betty came hurrying up from the wrong end of the train.

"Oh, and we missed you," wailed Betty, "and I wanted to be the first."

One could hug indiscriminately at Ridgetown Station. Jean was the next person to melt into tears. She had tried to tell Miss Grace how sorry she was.

Cuthbert began to restore order.

"You'd better take two in that carriage, crowded or not," said he.

"There are boxes lying on the platform which will require a cab to themselves."

"It's our music," said Jean importantly and quite untruthfully.

"It's my new hat," said Mabel, with a return of her old dash.

She had gone round the carriage seeing each occupant separately, and there seemed to be no hurry for anything, merely the pleasure of meeting again.

Just then there was a whirl of wheels in the distance. A certain familiarity in the sound made four girls look at each other. Mrs.

Leighton, who had no ear for wheels, stared in a surprised way at her daughters.

"Well," she said, "what are we all waiting for? We must get home sometime."

"Yes," asked Cuthbert l.u.s.tily, "what in the wide world are we waiting for?"

A high wagonette and pair of horses drove up, and turned with a fine circle into line behind them. In the wagonette sat Adelaide Maud.

Adelaide Maud was dressed in blue.