“This is Ida May, Aunt Lucretia,” said Tunis, as they reached the porch.

The smiling woman stretched forth a hand to the girl.  Her eyes, peering through the spectacles, were very keen, and when their gaze was centered upon the girl’s face it seemed that Aunt Lucretia was suddenly smitten by some thought, or by some discovery about the visitor, which made her greeting slow.

Yet that may have been her usual manner.  Tunis did not appear to observe anything extraordinary.  But Sheila thought Aunt Lucretia had been about to greet her with a kiss, and then had thought better of it.

CHAPTER XVII

AUNT LUCRETIA

There was nothing thereafter in Aunt Lucretia’s manner—­surely not in her speech—­to lead Sheila to fear the woman did not accept her at face value.  Why should she suspect a masquerade when nobody else did?  The girl took her cue from Tunis and placidly accepted his aunt’s manner as natural.

Aunt Lucretia put the dinner on the table at once.  They ate, when there was special company, in the dining room.  The meal was generous in quantity and well cooked.  It was evident that, like most country housewives, Lucretia Latham took pride in her table.  Had the visitor come for the meal alone she would have been amply recompensed.

But the woman seldom uttered a word, and then only brief questions regarding the service of the food.  She listened smilingly to the conversation between Tunis and the visitor, but did not enter into it.  It was difficult for the girl to feel at ease under these circumstances.

Especially was this so after dinner, when she asked to help Aunt Lucretia clear off the table and wash and dry the dishes.  The woman made no objection; indeed, she seemed to accept the girl’s assistance placidly enough.  But while they were engaged in the task—­a time when two women usually have much to chatter about, if nothing of great importance—­Aunt Lucretia uttered scarcely a word, preferring even to instruct her companion in dumb show where the dried dishes should be placed.

Yet, all the time, the girl could not trace anything in Aunt Lucretia’s manner or look which actually suggested suspicion or dislike.  Tunis seemed eminently satisfied with his aunt’s attitude.  He whispered to Sheila, when they were alone together: 

“She certainly likes you, Ida May.”

“Are you sure?” the girl asked.

“Couldn’t be mistaken.  But don’t expect her to tell you so in just so many words.”

Later they walked about the dooryard and out-buildings—­Tunis and the visitor—­and Aunt Lucretia watched them from her rocking-chair on the porch.  What her thoughts were regarding her nephew and the girl it would be hard to guess, but whatever they were, they made her face no grimmer than usual, and the light in her bespectacled eyes was scarcely one of dislike or even of disapproval.  Yet there was a strange something in the woman’s look or manner which suggested that she watched the visitor with thoughts or feelings which she wished neither the girl nor Tunis to observe.