When Lucy, radiant in her own happiness, entered her aunt’s room, she was surprised to find that all Ellen’s recent anger had apparently vanished, and that she had dropped into a lethargic mood from which it was difficult to rouse her. It was not so much that the elder woman was out of temper—that was to be expected—as that she seemed to be turning over in her mind some problem which was either unsolved or unpleasant, and which knitted her brow into a web of wrinkles, forcing her lips together with an ominous curl.

Lucy, who stood at the table arranging a vase of freshly gathered pansies, furtively studied the invalid’s sullen reverie.

“How are you feeling to-day, Aunt Ellen?” she at last inquired with courageous effort.

“No different.”

“Melvina said she was afraid you did not have a comfortable night.” 235

The blue eyes flashed a suspicious glance of inquiry over the questioner’s countenance, then closed wearily.

“I didn’t,” was all she said.

“I am sorry to hear that.”

The regret was uttered with gentle sincerity. In an existence cloudless as her own, magnanimousness required little effort. Moreover, Lucy was forgiving by nature; and had she not been, the helplessness and friendlessness of the lonely soul before her would have presented a powerful plea for pity.

Ellen did not respond to the words.

“What was the trouble?” went on Lucy, after waiting a suitable length of time and sensing that no answer was to be forthcoming. “Were you in pain?”

At the interrogation a flame of hatred leaped into the woman’s face, flickered there, and then died down, leaving it cold and hard as marble.

“I got to thinkin’,” she returned briefly.

“I hope what I said did not worry you, Aunt Ellen.”

“It did last night; but it don’t now,” responded Ellen, with a disagreeable laugh.

“That’s good. I should be sorry to have been the cause of your lying here fretting.” 236

“I ain’t doin’ no frettin’ now,” repeated Ellen. Then, changing a subject both seemed to regard as a delicate one, she asked in a more natural tone: “What were you plannin’ to do this mornin’?”

“Oh, just the regular things,” Lucy said cordially, glad to be once more on safer ground. “Why?”

“’Cause I’m possessed of a hankerin’ for some raspberries,” said Ellen. “I like ’em, an’ I ain’t had any for a long time. Somehow it seems as if they’d taste awful good.”

Lucy’s face lighted.

“Why, I’d be glad to try and get some for you, Aunt Ellen,” she cried. “You know I’d love to get anything you wanted if I could. I’m so pleased that you mentioned it.”

Ellen twisted her head on the pillow and began outlining the figures on the counterpane with her long, misshapen finger.

“I s’pose you couldn’t find enough for a shortcake, could you?” she ventured skeptically.

“I don’t know but I could. At least, I could try. Of course it’s late in the season for them.” 237

The lean finger continued to follow the flowered design of the bedcovering.

“There used to be some late ones up at the top of Pine Ridge,” remarked the invalid casually. “That would be quite a walk though, an’ likely further than you’d care to go.”

“No, indeed it wouldn’t!”

There was fervor in the protest. Already visions of a morning in the blue and gold world were shaping themselves in the girl’s mind. No doubt Jane Howe would go with her; probably Martin would be too busy to leave his work; but if he were not, what a bit of Paradise they could have together!

Ellen, who read her niece’s thoughts almost as readily as if they had been openly expressed, smiled a malevolent smile.

“It’s a good four miles to the Ridge,” she remarked. “Goin’, comin’, an’ pickin’ would take you the whole mornin’, I reckon.”

“I’m afraid it would,” agreed Lucy. “Could you spare me as long as that?”

“Yes. I don’t need nothin’; an’ if I do, Melviny can get it. I’d rather have you go than not. If you could get me enough berries for a shortcake it would be worth it.” 238

The note of suppressed eagerness in the words caused Lucy to regard her aunt with quick, indefinable suspicion.

But Ellen met the glance unflinchingly, and with a baffled sense of being mistaken the girl hurried from the room. When she returned shortly afterward and paused in the doorway, she presented a winning picture.

She had donned a short khaki skirt and a pair of riding leggings such as she had been accustomed to wear in the West, and the broad sombrero crowning her golden hair outlined it like a halo. A simple blouse turned away to give freedom to the firm white throat completed the costume. Dimpling with anticipation, she held up her tin pail.

“I’m off, Aunt Ellen,” she called. “You shall have your shortcake if there is a berry within five miles.”

The woman listened to the fall of the light step on the stairs and the fragment of a song that came from the girl’s lips until the last note of the music died away; then she called Melvina.

“Melviny!”

“Yes, marm.”

“I want you should find Tony and tell him 239 to harness up. There’s somethin’ I need done in the village.”

“All right, Miss Webster.”

“Bring me a sheet of paper an’ a pencil before you go.”

The nurse entered with the desired articles.

“I’m sendin’ to town for Lawyer Benton,” announced the patient with elaborate carelessness.

Neither Melvina’s voice nor her face expressed the slightest curiosity.

“There’s some business I must see to right away, an’ I reckon I may’s well get it fixed up this mornin’.”

“Yes, marm.”

“Give Tony this note for Mr. Benton and tell him to fetch him back soon’s he can.”

Nodding acquiescence, Melvina disappeared.

During the interval between the time the wheels rattled out of the yard and rattled in again, Ellen fidgeted at a high-pitched excitement, starting nervously at every sound. Sometimes she scowled; and once she burst into a harsh, cracked peal of laughter. Her thoughts, whatever they were, seemed to amuse her vastly.

The moment the tramp of the horse’s hoofs 240 sounded on the gravel outside, she was alert and called to Melvina, stationed at the window:

“Is that Tony?”

“Yes, marm.”

“Has he got Mr. Benton with him?”

“Yes, Miss Webster. An’ there’s somebody else, too.”

“That’s good. Show Mr. Benton right up here. You needn’t wait. I’ll call you when I need you. Let the other man sit in the kitchen ’til we want him.”

Whatever the mysterious business was, it took no great while, for before an hour had passed Melvina, waiting in the hall outside the chamber door, heard a shrill summons.

“You can come in now, Melviny,” Ellen said. “There’s something here I want you should put your name to; an’ you can fetch that man who’s downstairs, an’ Tony.”

“All right.”

When, however, a few seconds later Melvina, accompanied by the stranger and the wondering Portuguese boy, entered the patient’s room, it was Mr. Benton who stepped into the foreground and who came obsequiously forward, pen in hand, to address the attendant.

“The paper which you are about to sign, 241 Miss Grey,” he began pompously, “is——” But Ellen cut short his peroration.

“It don’t make no difference to Melviny what it is, Mr. Benton,” she said impatiently. “All she’s got to do is to watch me write my name, an’ then put hers down where you tell her, together with Tony an’ the other witness. That will end it.”

“But don’t you think, Miss Webster, that in justice to Miss Grey, you should inform her——”

“No, I don’t,” snapped Ellen. “Melviny don’t care nothin’ about my affairs. I’ll write my name. Then you can give her the pen an’ let her sign. That’s all she’s got to do.”

Although Mr. Benton was a man of heavy, impressive appearance, he was in reality a far less effectual person to combat opposition than he seemed, and sensing that in the present instance it was easier to yield than to argue, he allowed himself to be cowed into submission and meekly gave the pen to Melvina who with blind faith inscribed her name on the crisp white paper in a small cramped hand. Caleb Saunders, the witness Mr. Benton had brought with him, next wrote his name, forming each letter with such conscientiousness that Ellen 242 could hardly wait until the painstaking and elaborate ceremonial was completed.

“Now let Tony sign,” she ordered imperiously. “He needn’t stop to wash his hands. A little dirt won’t be no hindrance, an’ I’m in a hurry to get this thing out of the way so Mr. Benton can go back.”

Yet notwithstanding Ellen’s haste, for Tony to affix his name to the document in question proved to be little short of a life work. Six times he had to be instructed on which line to write; and when on the seventh admonition his mind but vaguely grasped what was required of him, the lawyer took his stand at his elbow and with finger planted like a guidepost on the paper indicated beyond all chance of error where the signature was to be placed. When, however, the pen was redipped and upraised for the final legal touch, again it faltered. This time the delay was caused by uncertainties of spelling, which, it must be confessed, also baffled the combined intellects of the lawyer and the two women. Paponollari was not a name commonly encountered in New England. The three wrestled with it valiantly, but when a vote was taken, and it was set down in accordance with the ruling of the majority, it was 243 disheartening to discover that, when all was said and done, the Portuguese lad was not at all sure whether Tony was his Christian name or not.

“Good Lord!” ejaculated Ellen when, after more debating, the signature was finally inscribed, “I’m clean beat out. Why, I could have deeded away the whole United States in the time it’s taken this lout of a boy to scribble his name. Is it any wonder that with only a stupid idiot like this for help, my garden’s always behind other folks’, an’ my chores never done?”

Then to the bewildered, nerve-wracked alien she thundered:

“Don’t blot it, you fool!—don’t blot it! Can’t you keep your fingers out of the wet ink? Heavens, Melviny, do get him out of here!”

Tony was only too ready to retire. The ordeal had strained his patience and had left his brain feeling the stress of unaccustomed exercise. Therefore, allowing Melvina to drive him before her much as she would have driven a docile Jersey from a cabbage patch, he made his way downstairs, followed by the perspiring lawyer. 244

It was not until both of them were safely on the road to the village, and the house had assumed its customary calm that Lucy arrived, her hair tumbled by the wind and her eyes glowing like stars.

“I’ve got your berries, Aunt Ellen,” she said, holding aloft a pail heaped with fruit. “See what beauties they are! You shall have a royal shortcake.”

Ellen’s appreciation for some reason was, however, scanty and confused. She averted her glance from her niece’s face, and even at noontime when the girl appeared bearing a marvelously baked and yet more marvelously decorated masterpiece of culinary art, she had not regained sufficient poise to partake of the delicacy in any mood save that of furtive and guilty silence.

Lucy, ever sympathetic, ventured the fear that the invalid was over-tired, and after the meal drew the shades that her aunt might rest.

In the dim light Ellen seemed more at ease and presently fell into a deep slumber that lasted until midnight and was broken only by some phantasy of her dreams which intermittently brought from her lips a series of 245 muttered execrations and bitter, insinuating laughs.

Toward morning she roused herself and gave a feeble cry of pain. Instantly alert, Melvina hastened to her bedside. But by the time a candle was lighted all human aid was vain. Ellen Webster was dead.