Lydia Orr was beside the vehicle in a moment, her face bright with
welcoming smiles.
"Dear Mrs. Daggett," she said, "I'm so glad you've come. I've been
wanting to see you all day. I'm sure you can tell me--"
"You've met my husband's sister, Miss Lois Daggett, haven't you, Miss
Orr? She's the lady that made that beautiful drawn-in mat you bought
at the fair."
Miss Orr shook hands cordially with the author of the drawn-in mat.
"Come right in," she said. "You'll want to see what we're doing
inside, though nothing is finished yet."
She led the way to a small room off the library, its long French
windows opening on a balcony.
"This room used to be a kind of a den, they tell me; so I've made it
into one, the first thing, you see."
There was a rug on the floor, a chair or two and a high mahogany desk
which gave the place a semblance of comfort amid the general
confusion. Miss Lois Daggett gazed about with argus-eyed curiosity.
"I don't know as I was ever in this room, when Andrew Bolton lived
here," she observed, "but it looks real homelike now."
"Poor man! I often think of him," said kindly Mrs. Daggett. "'Twould
be turrible to be shut away from the sunshine f'r even one year; but
poor Andrew Bolton's been closed up in State's prison fer--l' me see,
it mus' be goin' on--"
"It's fifteen years, come fall, since he got his sentence," stated
the spinster. "His time must be 'most up."
Lydia Orr had seated herself in an old-fashioned chair, its tall
carved back turned to the open windows.
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