"—— You'd just better believe that if I had that precious darling, Anne Leavitt, back in our beloved tower room I'd tell her that all the fortunes in the world and all the suffering Russians wouldn't hire me to spend one more day with her 'family.'
"And yet, Claire, darling, it's so dreadful that it's funny. I just wonder that I haven't been scared pink! Can you picture your little Nancy surrounded by mahogany, so old that it fairly screams at you, that it was brought over on the Mayflower and walls as high as the Library tower (please subtract poetical license) and just oodles of Leavitt traditions—though I'll admit, just being a plain human mortal, I don't know yet quite what the Leavitt traditions are, but believe me, I expect to, very soon, for Aunt Sabrina talks of nothing else!
"Of course, sweet child, you can't make head or tail to all my jibberish, so I'll write lucid English now. The Island is wonderfully beautiful, everything about it seems different from any other part of the world—the trees are bigger and the grass is greener and every now and then you catch a glimpse of Lake Champlain as blue as Anne's sapphire ring and hazy purple mountains beyond. And the whole place is brimming with all kinds of historical stories.
"They call this house Happy House. It was named that by the first Anne Leavitt, and she had a mantel made in England with the letters carved on it, and the day after it was put up she died in the very room I'm writing in! Isn't that tragic and exciting? I can't make a story out of that, though, for it's been all written up in a book they sell at North Hero.
"The house is big and built of stone that was quarried on the Island, and it's all covered with vines and is beautiful—outside. It has trees all around it that meet overhead like a canopy, and instead of a regular garden in beds the ground's all covered with tiger lilies and Sweet William and phlox and lots of flowers I don't know the name of, that look as though they'd spilled out over their gardens and grew everywhere. And there's a darling old gardener who is a descendant of Ethan Allen.
"In fact, everyone I've seen is old and, Webb said, is descended from 'somebody or other.'
"But the inside of the house—oh, horrors! I don't believe a ray of sunshine has gotten into it since the year one, and if it did, it would be shut out mighty fast. Dad would go wild with delight over the old furniture, and the dishes are beautiful, but the wallpaper looks like green lobsters crawling all around, and you walk on brown-red roses as big as cabbages. Does it torture my artistic soul? Oh, ye gods! And my own room! No wonder that other Anne Leavitt died! I never saw so many tidies in my life—I shall never draw a happy breath among them. Oh, I can shut my eyes, right now and see the dear old tower room—you sitting in the middle of the bed (unmade, of course), playing your uke, Anne digging at her French Four on the window seat along with the fudge dishes which I forgot to wash, and a week's muss all around us. Oh, Claire, weren't we happy, though? And to think it's all over.
"Aunt Sabrina is very handsome and very Leavitty. I think Anne, in her manner, when we've done something she doesn't approve of, is like her Aunt Sabrina. She's very tall and parts her hair straight in the middle and has the longest, straightest nose and a way of talking to you that makes you feel like an atom. B'lindy, who is the woman-of-all-work around Happy House, but Somebody, just you believe, is very much like Aunt Sabrina and looks at you as if she could see the littlest thought way back in your mind. And, of course, with me acting a part and feeling as guilty as can be, you can imagine that I don't enjoy B'lindy's searching glance! However, I asked her some questions about the Leavitts and it warmed her up a little.
"But there is an Aunt Milly that Anne didn't seem to know about and, Claire, she is human—the dearest, sweetest, prettiest, timidest little thing. You can't tell, looking at her, whether she is old or not, but being my great-aunt—or Anne's—I suppose she is. But she is an invalid and evidently can't walk. There's something about her that makes you feel dreadfully sorry for her and like taking care of her, and I sort of imagine that for some reason or other Aunt Sabrina treats her horridly. When Aunt Sabrina comes into the room, poor Aunt Milly acts scared to death.
"Just how I'll come out of it all I can't guess. I've got to keep my head and see the thing through for Anne's sake. But—so far—I don't like it a bit. It was easy enough planning it all with Anne back in college, but somehow, now that I'm here, I feel so underhanded, deceiving these people. And Miss Sabrina talks so much about the Leavitt honor that it makes me feel like thirty cents. There is a lot of mystery about the place, but I feel as though I had no right to try and find it out, though I'll admit I'm dreadfully curious. I rode over from North Hero with the funniest old man—his name is Webb and he said he was one of Freedom's 'first citizens.' Modest—yes. Well, with a very little encouragement he would have poured out the entire Leavitt history, only it didn't seem nice to let him talk. But he spoke about a 'Leavitt trouble,' and he said something about Miss Milly being 'happier in the grave.' Isn't that interesting? And the very strangest thing of all is that Aunt Sabrina has forbidden me to ever mention my father—or Anne's father and grandfather! Of course Anne will want to know all about it, and maybe it is my duty to find out why! Anyway, if the chance comes to me, well, I won't shut my ears.