The Corner House Girls Part 28

Her older sister puzzled Agnes. Instead of taking the good things that had come into their lives here at the old Corner House with joy, Ruth seemed to be more than ever worried. At least, Agnes was sure that Ruth smiled even less frequently than had been her wont.

When Ruth chanced to be alone with Miss t.i.tus, instead of her mind being fixed upon dressmaking details, she was striving to gather from the seamstress more particulars of those strange claimants to Uncle Peter's estate.

Not that Miss t.i.tus had much to tell. She had only surmises to offer.

Mrs. Bean, though claiming to know the people very well, had told the spinster lady very little about them.

"Their names is Treble, I understand," said Miss t.i.tus. "I never heard of no family of Trebles living in Milton here-no, Ma'am! But you can't tell. Folks claiming relationship always turn up awful unexpected where there's money to be divided."

"Mother was only half sister to Uncle Peter," said Ruth, reflectively.

"But Uncle Peter was never married."

"Not as anybody in Milton ever heard on," admitted Miss t.i.tus.

"Do you suppose Aunt Sarah would know who these people are?" queried Ruth.

"You can just take it from me," said Miss t.i.tus, briskly, "that Sally Maltby never knew much about Peter's private affairs. Never half as much as she claimed to know, and not a quarter of what she'd _liked_ to have known!

"That's why she had to get out of the old Corner House--"

"Did she _have_ to?" interrupted Ruth, quickly.

"Yes, she did," said the seamstress, nodding confidently. "Although old Mr. Stower promised her mother she should have shelter here as long as Sally lived, he died without making a will. Mrs.

Maltby-that-was, died first. So there wasn't any legal claim Sally Maltby could make. She stayed here only by Peter's sufferance, and she couldn't be content.

"Sally learned only one lesson-that of keeping her tongue between her teeth," pursued Miss t.i.tus. "Peter declared she was always snooping around, and watching and listening. Sally always was a stubborn thing, and she had got it into her head that she had rights here-which of course, she never had.

"So finally Peter forbade her coming into the front part of the house at all; then she went to live with your folks, and Peter washed his hands of her. I expect, like all misers, Peter wanted to hide things about the old house and didn't want to be watched. Do you know if Howbridge found much of the old man's hidings?"

"I do not know about that," said Ruth, smiling. "But Uncle Rufus thinks Uncle Peter used to hide things away in the garret."

"In the garret?" cried Miss t.i.tus, shrilly. "Well, then! they'd stay there for all of me. I wouldn't hunt up there for a pot of gold!"

Nor would Ruth-for she did not expect any such h.o.a.rd as that had been hidden away in the garret by Uncle Peter. She often looked curiously at Aunt Sarah, however, when she sat with the old lady, tempted to ask her point-blank what she knew about Uncle Peter's secrets.

When a person is as silent as Aunt Sarah habitually was, it is only natural to surmise that the silent one may have much to tell. Ruth had not the courage, however, to advance the subject. She, like her younger sisters, stood in no little awe of grim Aunt Sarah.

Mr. Howbridge remained away and Miss t.i.tus completed such work as Ruth dared have done, and removed her machine and cutting table from the old Corner House. The days pa.s.sed for the Kenway girls in cheerful occupations and such simple pleasures as they had been used to all their lives.

Agnes would, as she frankly said, have been glad to "make a splurge."

She begged to give a party to the few girls they had met but Ruth would not listen to any such thing.

"I think it's mean!" Aggie complained. "We want to get folks to coming here. If they think the old house is haunted, we want to prove to them that it is haunted only by the Spirit of Hospitality."

"Very fine! very fine!" laughed Ruth. "But we shall have to wait for that, until we are more secure in our footing here."

"'More secure!'" repeated Agnes. "When will that ever be? I don't believe Mr. Howbridge will ever find Uncle Peter's will. I'd like to hunt myself for it."

"And perhaps _that_ might not be a bad idea," sighed Ruth, to herself.

"Perhaps we ought to search the old house from cellar to garret for Uncle Peter's hidden papers."

Something happened, however, before she could carry out this half-formed intention. Tess and Dot had gone down Main Street on an errand for Ruth. Coming back toward the old Corner House, they saw before them a tall, dark lady, dressed in a long summer mantle, a lace bonnet, and other bits of finery that marked her as different from the ordinary Milton matron doing her morning's marketing. She had a little girl with her.

"I never saw those folks before," said Dot to Tess.

"No. They must be strangers. That little girl is wearing a pretty dress, isn't she?"

Tess and Dot came abreast of the two. The little girl _was_ very showily dressed. Her pink and white face was very angelic in its expression-while in repose. But she chanced to look around and see the Kenway girls looking at her, and instantly she stuck out her tongue and made a face.

"Oh, dear! She's worse than that Mabel Creamer," said Tess, and she took Dot's hand and would have hurried by, had the lady not stopped them.

"Little girls! little girls!" she said, commandingly. "Tell me where the house is, in which Mr. Peter Stower lived. It is up this way somewhere they told me at the station."

"Oh, yes, Ma'am," said Tess, politely. "It is the old Corner House-_our_ house."

"_Your_ house?" said the tall lady, sharply. "What do you mean by that?"

"We live there," said Tess, bravely. "We are two of the Kenway girls.

Then there are Ruth and Agnes. And Aunt Sarah. We all live there."

"You reside in Mr. Peter Stower's house?" said the lady, with emphasis, and looking not at all pleasant, Tess thought. "How long have you resided there?"

"Ever since we came to Milton. We were Uncle Peter's only relations, so Mr. Howbridge came for us and put us in the house," explained Tess, gravely.

"Mr. Stower's only relatives?" repeated the lady, haughtily. "We will see about _that_. You may lead on to the house. At least, I am sure we have as much right there as a parcel of girls."

Tess and Dot were troubled, but they led the way. Agnes and Ruth were on the big front porch sewing and they saw the procession enter the gate.

"Goodness me! who's this coming?" asked Agnes, eyeing the dark lady with startled curiosity. "Looks as though she owned the place."

"Oh, Agnes!" gasped Ruth, and sprang to her feet. She met the lady at the steps.

"Who are you?" asked the stranger, sourly.

"I am Ruth Kenway. Did you-you wish to see me, Ma'am?"

"I don't care whom I see," the lady answered decisively, marching right up the steps and leading the angel-faced little girl by the hand. "I want you to know that I am Mrs. Treble. Mrs. John Augustus Treble. My daughter Lillie (stand straight, child!) and I, have been living in Michigan. John Augustus has been dead five years. He was blown up in a powder-mill explosion, so I can prove his death very easily. So, when I heard that my husband's uncle, Mr. Peter Stower, was dead here in Milton, I decided to come on and get Lillie's share of the property."

"Oh!" murmured Ruth and Agnes, in chorus.

"I am not sure that, as John Augustus Treble's widow, my claims to the estate do not come clearly ahead of _yours_. I understand that you Kenway girls are merely here on sufferance, and that the ties of relationship between you and Mr. Peter Stower are very scant indeed.

Of course, I suppose the courts will have to decide the matter, but meanwhile you may show me to my room. I don't care to pay a hotel bill, and it looks to me as though there were plenty of rooms, and to spare, in this ugly old house."

Ruth was left breathless. But Agnes was able to whisper in her sister's ear:

"'Mrs. Treble' indeed! She looks to me, Ruth, a whole lot like 'Mrs.

Trouble.' What _shall_ we do?"