"Yes, ma'am. Miss Lippit says that isn't her real name. She was a 'dopted child."
"Who was?" demanded the matron, all in a flutter again.
"Miss Pepperill. She was brought up by a family named Pepperill. Seems funny," said Tess, gravely. "_She_ lost her mother and father in a fire."
"I guess that's why her hair is red," said Dot, not believing her own reasoning, but desiring to be in the conversation.
Mrs. Eland was silent for some minutes. "She isn't mad, is she?" whispered Dot to Tess.
But the latter respected her friend's silence. Finally the matron said pleasantly enough: "I am going out when you children go home. You must show me where this school teacher of yours lives. If I can be of any service----"
She put on her bonnet and the long gray cloak in a few minutes, and the three set forth from the hospital. Dot clung to one hand and Tess to the other of the little gray woman, as they went to Miss Lippit's boarding house.
"This is Mrs. Eland," Tess said to the spinster, who was both landlady and friend of the injured school teacher. "She is my friend and the matron of the hospital where Miss Pepperill went with us one day."
"When she carried _my_ flowers and gave some to the children," muttered Dot, who had never gotten over that.
"I'm glad to see you, Mrs. Eland," said Miss Lippit. "I do not know why Miss Pepperill calls for you so much. She is a singularly friendless woman."
"I thought she had always lived in Milton?" said the matron, in an inquiring way.
"Oh, no, ma'am. She lived in the town I came from. We children always thought she was Mr. and Mrs. Pepperill's granddaughter; but it seemed not. She was picked up by them wandering about in Liston after the big fire."
Mrs. Eland repeated the name of the Western city, holding hard to a chairback the while, and watching Miss Lippit hungrily.
"Yes, ma'am," said the landlady. "We learned all about it. Miss Pepperill was so small she didn't know her own name--only 'Teeny.'"
"'Teeny'!" repeated Mrs. Eland, pale to her lips.
"She had a sister. She remembered her quite plainly. Marion. When Miss Pepperill was younger she was always expecting to meet that sister somewhere. But I haven't heard her say anything about it of late years."