Rosemary | Page 8

her, she recognized her.
"Well, Rosemary darling, you came to meet me--that's lovely I'm sure," cried Aunt Trudy, panting slightly from her leap off the last step of the car, to the conductor's unconcealed amazement. "And Mother is much better, the telegram said. As soon as I heard, I resolved nothing should keep me from you--Oh, there's Shirley and Sarah, the dears!"
Shirley responded affectionately to her aunt's caresses, but Sarah stood like a wooden image and submitted to being kissed with bad grace. Aunt Trudy was too excited to be critical.
"What do I do about my trunks?" she fluttered. "And these bags are both heavy--I've brought you girls each a little something. Is Hugh home? And Winnie is still with you, of course?"
Rosemary wisely did not attempt to answer all these questions and, considering that Winnie had been in the Willis family for twenty-eight years and Aunt Trudy had unfailingly put this question to some member of the family at every meeting for the last twenty-seven, this particular query might be said to be more a comment than a question.
"We'll go up to the house in Bernard Coyle's jitney," said Rosemary, leading the way around to the side platform. "He will take your trunk checks, Aunt Trudy, and the express man will deliver them."
Bernard Coyle ran two of the three Eastshore jitneys and personally conducted the least ancient of his two cars. He welcomed the prospect of four passengers with a glad smile and swung Aunt Trudy's bags to a safe place under the seat at a nod from Rosemary. While they climbed in, he departed with the trunk checks and returned in a few minutes to report that the three trunks would be in the front hall of the Willis home within an hour.
Then he took the wheel of his wheezy little car and without another word drove frenziedly and rackingly through the quiet streets till the Willis house was reached. Winnie, mindful of Rosemary's plea, came out to the curb to meet them.
"Well, Winnie, I'm glad to see you again," was Miss Wright's greeting. "You and I are to keep house and look after these flighty young folks, I understand."
"Yes'm," nodded Winnie. "Your room's all ready, Miss Wright--the one you always have, next to Mrs. Willis'. And Doctor Hugh said to tell you he'd be home at quarter of six."
Aunt Trudy Wright was a rather short, dumpy woman and inclined to be stout and short of breath. She had iron-gray hair, near-sighted dark eyes and very pretty, very plump small hands. She exclaimed over her room when she saw it, said that everything was lovely and insisted on kissing the three girls again. Sarah promptly left at this point and was discovered by her brother when he came home, lying flat on the porch rug and absorbed in a book which dealt, in detail, with the health and welfare of rabbits.
"Well you look comfortable," he said good-humoredly. "Aunt Trudy come? Who went to meet her? Where are the other girls?"
"Uh-huh," grunted Sarah, interested at that moment in a description of a balanced diet for her pets.
Dr. Hugh laughed and went on. The house seemed strangely quiet to him, though he could hear Winnie humming in the kitchen and appetizing odors promised a dinner on time. In the upstairs hall, Rosemary tip-toed to meet him, her eyes dark with mystery.
"Hello, where is everyone?" asked her brother, giving her a kiss. "What has happened to Aunt Trudy?"
"She's getting ready for dinner," explained Rosemary. "She's been crying in Mother's room for almost an hour and then her trunks came and she thought she'd change her dress."
"Crying in Mother's room--what for?" demanded Doctor Hugh quickly.
"Oh, because memories were too much for her," quoted Rosemary solemnly. "She made Shirley and me cry, too, but Sarah went down stairs when she tried to kiss her, so she didn't hear her talk."
"I'll give Sarah credit for good sense," said Doctor Hugh grimly.
He strode down the hall to his mother's room, took the key from the inside and locked the door and dropped the key in his pocket.
"And that's that," he announced, smiling a little at Rosemary's puzzled face.
CHAPTER IV
DR. HUGH TAKES COMMAND
Miss Wright appeared at dinner in rustling black silk, and kissed Dr. Hugh affectionately. In her plump arms she carried three packages.
"I brought each of the girls a box of French chocolates," she explained, smiling. "They're simply delicious and there is just one shop in town which imports them."
Rosemary dimpled as she untied her package, Shirley shrieked with glee and even Sarah's "thank you, Aunt Trudy" had an unusual depth of warmth in it. Two-pound boxes of chocolates did not appear at dinner every day.
Dr. Hugh put down his carving knife as Shirley lifted the lid from her beribboned box.
"I think I'll have to take