Under Nancy's pressure the door opened into a pantry and beyond, in a big, sunny kitchen, shiny in its spotlessness, stood B'lindy before a table, putting the last touches to a pie. She turned at the sound of Nancy's step. Nancy paused in the doorway.
"May I come in?" she asked. "Are you B'lindy?" She imitated Webb's abbreviation.
"Yes," the woman at the table answered shortly. "And you're the niece." She gave Nancy a long, steady look. "Ain't a bit like a Leavitt's I can see! Miss Sabriny would have you come, I hope you'll like it."
"The hateful creature," thought Nancy. Why couldn't some one in Happy House act natural and kind and jolly?
Like Miss Sabrina, B'lindy was tall and almost as old; her forbidding manner came not from a Roman nose but from heavy brows that frowned down over deep-set eyes—eyes that pierced in their keenness. Like Miss Sabrina she had a certain dignity, too, which seemed to set her apart from her fellow creatures—the result, no doubt, as Nancy thought, of having been born in the Leavitt household.
"Of course I'm going to love it. It's so—so quiet! And that omelette you made me was delicious. I was dreadfully hungry. And oh, there is so much I want to know about Happy House. Webb told me—coming here—that you knew everything. I've just gone in and looked at the old fireplace. Tell me all about that Anne Leavitt."
Nancy's coaxing tone covered the fire that was within her heart. To herself she was saying: "The old iceberg—I'll thaw her out now or never!"
B'lindy set her pie down; her voice warmed a little. She rested her hands on her hips and assumed what Webb would have called her "speakin' air."
"Well, now, if it's pryin' B'lindy Guest don't know nothin', but if it's hist'ry—Webb's just about right. Justin Leavitt brought Anne Leavitt down from Montreal 'slong ago as 1740, when there was first a settlement up to Isle la Motte. He bought most this whole Island, I guess, from the Indians and when they wanted a home Anne Leavitt laid her finger on this very spot we're sittin' on. Justin built the house out of the stone they dug from the Island itself. And she planned that there mantel—just set her heart on it and it seems how a Leavitt could have anything—anyways they hed it made in England and brought over here jest's she planned with Happy House spelled on it all carved like 'tis now. And she helped put it up with her own little hands. The house's been changed a lot sence but no one's ever touched that mantel!"
"And then she died," put in Nancy, breathlessly.