Helena thought she had never seen anything lovelier than this charming old lady, who moved as briskly as a girl and entered into their amusements like one; and when nobody answered her question she volunteered the suggestion:
"Charades? Or a little play in the big barn?"
"Just the thing; the charades, I mean. There would hardly be time for getting ready for a play, with parts to study and so on. We might plan that for Friday evening, our last one together. But do you, my dear, gather part of your friends about you and arrange the charades. Enough of us must be left for audience, you know. Well, Dorothy, what is it? You seem so anxious to speak?"
"Why not 'character' studies and make everybody guess. There's that attic full of trunks I discovered one day. Surely they must be full of lovely things; and oh! it's so jolly to 'dress up'! Afterward, we might have a little dance in the barn--May we, may we?"
"Surely, we may! Dinah has the keys to the trunks, only I warn you--no carelessness. It's one of my notions to preserve the costumes of the passing years and I wouldn't like them injured. You may use anything you find, on the condition of being careful."
That rainy day promised to be the merriest of all; and Dorothy had quite forgotten some unpleasant things, till, breakfast being over and most of the company disappearing in pursuit of Dinah and her keys to the treasure-trunks, Aunt Betty laid a detaining touch upon her arm and said:
"But you and I, my dear, will have a little talk in my room."
Down went her happiness in a flash. The "misunderstanding" had not been passed by, then; and as yet there had been no "setting right." Mrs. Calvert's face was not stern, saying this, but the girl so thought. Indeed, had she known it, Aunt Betty shrank more from the interview and the reproof she must give than did the culprit herself. However, shrinking did no good, and immediately the Mistress had seated herself she began:
"What grieved me most was your suspicion of Ephraim. Dorothy, that man's skin may be black but his soul is as white as a soul can be. He has served me ever since he was able to toddle and I have yet to find the first serious fault in him. The loss of the money was bad enough, and your scant value of it bad. Why, child, do you know whose money that was?"