In a little while the matron asked the children a few more questions, including Mr. Buckham's full name, and how he was to be reached. She had not been in the neighborhood of Ipswitch Curve since she had first come from the West--a newly made orphan and with the loss of her little sister a fresh wound in her poor heart. So she had forgotten the strawberry farmer, and most of the other people in the old neighborhood where her father had lived before going West.
Dot Kenway was quite unconscious of having involuntarily inflicted a wound in Mrs. Eland's mind and heart that she was doomed not to recover from for long weeks. As the sisters bade the matron good-bye, and started for the old Corner House, just as dusk was falling, Tess felt that her friend, Mrs. Eland, was really much sadder than she had been when they had begun their call.
Tess, however, could not understand the reason for this.
Naturally, Neale O'Neil stopped at the old Corner House on his way home with his new suit of clothes, to display them to Agnes and the others. In spite of Ruth's pronounced distaste for boys, she could not help having a secret interest in Neale O'Neil, and Agnes and Mrs. MacCall were not the only inmates of the Stower mansion that wanted to see the new suit on the boy, to be sure, before he appeared at church in it the next Sunday, that it fitted him properly.
"There!" exclaimed the housekeeper, the moment Neale came back from the bathroom where he had made the change, and she saw how the gray suit looked. "I never knew that Merriefield, the clothier, to sell a suit but what either the coat was too big, the vest too long, or the pants out o' kilter in some way. Look at them pants!" she added, almost tragically.
"Wha--what's the matter with them?" queried Neale, somewhat excited, and trying to see behind him. He was quite an acrobat, but he could not look down his spinal column. "Are they torn?"
"Tore? No! Only tore off a mile too long," snorted Mrs. MacCall.
"I declare, Neale," chuckled Agnes, "they are awfully long. They drag at the heel."
"And I've got 'em pulled up now till I feel as though I was going to be cut in two," complained the boy.
"Made for a man--made for a man," sniffed Aunt Sarah, who chanced to be in the sitting room. She did not often take any interest in Neale O'Neil--or appear to, at least. But she eyed the too long trousers malevolently. "Ought to be cut off two inches."
