“What say, dear?” responded a low and quite toneless voice—­the voice of the very deaf.

“Home, Granny?” repeated the younger voice.  The strong arm of the taller figure came about the little shoulders in the small gray travelling coat.

“Warm?  Not so warm as it was on the train.  I shall be quite comfortable once I am sitting quietly in my chair.”

Doctor and Mrs. Burns, following the travellers with certain pieces of hand luggage, looked at one another.

“Bless her small heart, is she as deaf as that?” queried Red Pepper, in a whisper.  “I shall have difficulty in getting my adoration over to her!”

“She has grown much deafer since I knew her, several years ago,” Ellen explained.  “But as her eyes seem bright as ever I imagine you will have no difficulty in making her understand your adoration.  She is used to it.”

“I should think she might be.  She is the prettiest old lady I ever saw, and looks one of the keenest.  We shall understand each other, if we have to write on slates.”

Charlotte led Madam Chase—­Mrs. Rodney Rutherford Chase was the name on the visiting cards she still used with scrupulous care for the observances of etiquette—­in at the cottage door and placed her in the winged chair.  She untied and removed a microscopic bonnet, drew off the gray coat, and laid an inquiring finger on her charge’s wrist.

“Let me attend to that,” begged R.P.  Burns, looming in the small doorway.  “I’ll find out how tired she is.  I doubt if she would admit it by word of mouth.”

He went down on one knee beside the chair, a procedure which brought his smiling face beside the old lady’s questioning one.  His fingers clasped her wrist, and held it after he had found out what it told him.

“Tired?” he said, very distinctly, his lips forming the word for her to see.

Madam Chase shook her head decidedly.  “Not at all, Doctor.  But the train was very warm and very dusty.  I shall be glad to feel a cool linen pillow under my head instead of a hot cotton one.”

He nodded.  “Could you eat a bit, and drink a cup of tea?”

“What say, Doctor?  Tea?  Yes, I should be glad of tea.  I never like the decoction they serve upon trains and call tea.”

“I’ll have it for her in a minute,” and Ellen went out into the kitchen.

Burns looked up at Miss Ruston.  “As soon as she has had her tea she must go to bed.  She has stood the journey well, but she needs a long rest after it.”  Then he looked again at Mrs. Rodney Rutherford Chase.  “I can see you are a very plucky small person,” said he, and her nod and smile in answer showed that at least she caught the indications of a compliment.

Presently, when she had had her tea, had patted Ellen’s hand for bringing it, and had looked about her a little with observant eyes which showed pleasure when they rested on certain familiar objects, she laid her white curls back against the chair and looked up at her granddaughter like a child who asks to be put to sleep.