"And now, father, please put down how much you get a year in dividends."
Nevertheless he noted down the average sums. And the total was between six and seven hundred dollars.
"But that isn't all. You've got other things. Why, there's the house at Cross Corners."
"Two hundred and fifty. For house and land."
Mr. Gartney turned around and looked at his daughter. He began to see there was a meaning in her questions. And as he caught her eye, he read, or discerned without fully reading, a certain eager kindling there.
"Why, what has come over you, Faithie, to set you catechising so?"
"Just answer this, please, and I won't ask a single question more to-night."
"About the rent? Why, this house ought to bring six hundred, certainly. And now, if the court will permit, I'll read the news."
About a week after this, in the latter half of one of those spring days that come with a warm breath to tell that summer is glowing somewhere, and that her face is northward, Aunt Faith Henderson came out upon the low, vine-latticed stoop of her house in Kinnicutt.
Up the little footpath from the road--across the bit of greensward that lay between it and the stoop--came a quick, noiseless step, and there was a touch, presently, on the old lady's arm.
Faith Gartney stood beside her, in trim straw bonnet and shawl, with a black leather bag upon her arm.
"Auntie! I've come to make you a tiny little visit! Till day after to-morrow."
"Faith Gartney! However came you here? And in such a fashion, too, without a word of warning, like--an angel from Heaven!"
"I came up in the cars, auntie! I felt just like it! Will you keep me?"
"Glory! Glory McWhirk!" Like the good Vicar of Wakefield, Aunt Henderson liked often to give the whole name; and calling, she disappeared round the corner of the stoop, without ever a word of more assured welcome.
"Put on the teapot again, and make a slice of toast." The good lady's voice, going on with further directions, was lost in the intricate threading of the inner maze of the singular old dwelling, and Faith followed her as far as the first apartment, where she set down her bag and removed her bonnet.
It was a quaint, dim room, overbrowed and gloomed by the roofed projection of the stoop; low-ceiled, high-wainscoted and paneled. All in oak, of the natural color, deepened and glossed by time and wear. The heavy beams that supported the floor above were undisguised, and left the ceiling in panels also, as it were, between. In these highest places, a man six feet tall could hardly have stood without bending. He certainly would not, whether he could or no. Even Aunt Faith, with her five feet, six-and-a-half, dropped a little of her dignity, habitually, when she entered. But then, as she said, "A hen always bobs her head when she comes in at a barn door." Between the windows stood an old, old-fashioned secretary, that filled up from floor to ceiling; and over the fireplace a mirror of equally antique date tilted forward from the wall. Opposite the secretary, a plain mahogany table; and eight high-backed, claw-footed chairs ranged stiffly around the room.