[CHAPTER VIII]
A DISCLOSURE
"The old horse is neighing again," said Miss Ri, whimsically, one morning a little later. "I must go to town, Verlinda."
The girl looked up from some papers over which she was working. The two were sitting at the big table before an open fire, for it had suddenly turned colder. The room was very cosey, with warm touches of color found in the table-cover of red, in the yellow chrysanthemums by the window, and in the deep tones of the furniture. Linda looked frailer and thinner than when her life at the farm admitted of more open-air employment and less indoor. She did her work conscientiously, even thankfully, but hardly lovingly, and in consequence it was a constant strain upon her vitality. "What were you saying, Aunt Ri?" she asked, her thoughts vaguely lingering with her work, while yet she was conscious of Miss Ri's remark.
"I said the old horse was neighing again. There is another sale this week, a different express company this time, and I feel the call of the unknown. I think I'll go up by train, and then you will be alone but one night. Bertie enjoyed herself so much last time, that I am sure she will like to come again, if you want her. Bertie is a nice child, not an overstock of brains in some directions, but plenty of hard sense in others."
"Do you suppose it will be cough medicine this time?" asked Linda, making little spirals on the edge of her paper with her pencil.
"Heaven forfend! No, I'm going to bid on the biggest thing there, if it be a hogshead. I saw one man get a stuffed double-headed calf, and another the parts of some machine whose other belonging had evidently gone elsewhere. I shall try to avoid such things. I wish you could go with me, Verlinda; it is such fun." Miss Ri's eyes twinkled, as her hands busied themselves with some knitting she had taken up.
"I'd like to go," admitted Linda wistfully, "but it isn't a holiday, and I mustn't play truant. Good luck to you, Aunt Ri." She returned to her work, while Miss Ri knitted on for a while.
"Shall you be working long?" asked the latter presently. "I must make such an early start, that I think I'll go up, if you will put out the lights and see to the fire."