  “Good morning, Mrs. Sperry,” Nan called as she drew rein at the door of the lodge. “Could Bertha go up to the house and stay until I have cantered into town and back? Miss Dahlia is still in bed and I have a few purchases to make.” Then Nan told her new plan and the gardener’s wife replied, “Bertha and Bobsy are in school. They take their lunch and stay all day and my husband works over at Baxters’ now till mid-afternoon, so I’ll take my basket of darning and go right up to be near Miss Dahlia if she should call.” “Thank you, Mrs. Sperry, I won’t be gone long and you’ll find my room just flooded with sunshine.” An hour later Nan returned and soon thereafter a delivery wagon left a bundle at the kitchen door. Mrs. Sperry declared that she could stay all the morning just as well as not. Miss Dahlia did not awaken. Now and then Mrs. Sperry heard the tapping of a hammer from the ground floor where the kitchen and maid’s dining room were and she wondered what Miss Dahlia would think of the new plan. At about noon, Nan tiptoed upstairs and the gardener’s wife looked up with a welcoming smile. “I’m on the last hole in the last stocking,” she said softly. “I’m so glad to have them all done.” Then she added, “Is the new plan finished?” The girl nodded. “I do hope Aunt Dahlia will like it,” she said. “Nan, dearie,” a sweet voice called from the next room, and Mrs. Sperry taking her basket of darned stockings, nodded goodbye and tiptoed away while the girl went to answer the call. “I’ve had such a restful sleep, dear,” the little old lady said, “and now I’ll dress and help you prepare our lunch. Really, Nan, I shall enjoy being allowed to go into a kitchen again. You know when I was a girl it was considered both proper and fashionable for a young lady to learn how to cook that she might direct her servants intelligently, if for no other reason, and many times I’ve wished I might slip down, when the cook was away, and see if I could still make some of the things as my dear mother taught me, but Sister Ursula did not approve. She said one of the maids might see me and think that I was queer.” Nan laughed. “What fun we will have, Aunt Dahlia,” she declared as she assisted the little old lady to dress, “for, if you will, I would like to have you teach me to cook as your mother taught you.” Then, when they were ready to go down stairs, Miss Dahlia said with almost girlish eagerness, “This afternoon we’ll go up in the attic. There’s a box somewhere up there which is filled with books, and in one of them my mother kept her tried recipes.” Nan led the way past the cold, formal dining room, with its polished table and high-backed carved chairs. The little old lay shuddered as she glanced in. “It will be hard to get used to having Sister Ursula’s place always vacant,” she said. “I knew it would, dear Aunt Dahlia,” the girl replied, as she put an arm about the little lady, “and that’s why I have planned to have our dining room somewhere else.” They had reached the ground floor and the girl opened a door. Miss Dahlia glanced in and then she exclaimed with real pleasure, “Nan, how charmingly you have arranged this little room!” It had formerly been the maids’ dining room. It was on a level with the ground. The wide windows opened upon the garden, a lilac bush, close to the house was fragrant with bloom, and a mocking bird, somewhere near, was singing joyously. But it was the inside which had been transformed as though by magic. Nan had scrubbed the creamy walls and woodwork and had hung blue and white draperies at the sunny windows, while at one side stood a high long basket-box of drooping ferns. The table was daintily set with blue bird dishes which Nan had used in boarding school when she had a spread for her friends. There were only two chairs, and, since Miss Ursula had never dined in this room, the loneliness of one gone could not be so keenly felt. “Be seated, my lady,” the merry girl said as she drew out the chair that faced the garden. “You are now to partake of the very first meal that your new cook has ever prepared.” Miss Dahlia was delighted with the dainty luncheon. Nan chatted joyously, although whenever she was alone, she pondered deeply on how to solve the serious problem that was confronting them. |
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