All Through the Night (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill
Moms," said Corliss, "I don't see what you wanted of a shanty like this! It really wasn't worth coming all this way over for."
"No," said Powelton, "it wouldn't even make a good fire."
His mother cast a reproving look at him.
"You'll find it will sell for quite a tidy little sum," said his mother. "You see, I didn't come all this way over here without knowing plenty about the situation. I found there is a project on to build a large munitions factory right in this neighborhood, and a few strings properly pulled can make it possible for this place to be included in the center of things. A little judicious maneuvering will bring us in a good sum if we hold out just long enough."
Dale, coming in with the final load of bags, happened to overhear this last announcement, although her aunt thought she had lowered her voice. But Dale put down the baggage with no more sign than a quick pressure of her pleasant lips into a straight line.
"Now," she said, looking up at her aunt and endeavoring to speak pleasantly, "will you come upstairs, Aunt Blanche, and see what arrangements I have made for you? Perhaps Powelton will bring up the bags you want right away."
"Not I, my fair cousin," responded the boy. "I've carried just all the bags I'm going to carry to-day."
But Dale thought it best to ignore that remark. Let his mother deal with her boy. It wasn't her business. So she led the way upstairs.
A straight, easy flight of broad, low steps led to a landing in a wide bay window, overlooking a pleasant landscape. The sun was just setting, and the scene was very lovely. But Dale was in no humor to pause or to call her aunt's attention to the sky decked out in glory. She hurried up the stairs, trying to make her voice steady as she spoke. "I thought you would like the old room where you used to be when you last visited here."
"Oh! Indeed! I really don't remember anything about it," said the aunt in a chilly voice. "I'll see what you have arranged and then take my choice; I'm rather particular about my surroundings."
Dale threw open the door at the head of the stairs and indicated the room within.
"I hope you'll be quite comfortable here," she said as pleasantly as she could over the anger that made her voice tremble.
The aunt cast a cold look over the pretty room with its starched muslin ruffles, its delicate old-fashioned china, and its polished mahogany.
"Hm!" said the woman. "I don't remember it. Have you anything else?"
Anger rolled up in a crimson wave from Dale's delicate throat and spread over her face, and for an instant she thought she was going to lose control of herself. She was being treated as if she were a servant in a rooming house. Then it suddenly came over her that Grandmother had drolly described what her daughter-in-law was like and given her clues to just such actions, and she caught her breath and gave a little light laugh.
"Yes," she said brightly. "I thought the next room would be nice for Corliss."
"Which one? That next door?" asked Corliss sharply. "No, I won't have that. It only has one window! I want that room down at the far end of the hall. It looks out to the street, and I'm sure it's much larger and sunnier." She turned and sped toward the room she craved, and Dale caught her breath and cried out softly, "No! No, you couldn't have that. That is Grandmother's room."
"Nonsense!" said Corliss sharply. "What's that got to do with it? I say I want that room." And she hurried down the hall, her hand already on the doorknob before Dale could reach her, and she was only deterred from flinging open the door by the fact that it was locked. "What's the meaning of this?" she almost screamed. "What right have you to lock the doors? I suppose you are keeping this room for yourself because it is the best room, obviously. Answer me! Why have you locked this door?"
Dale was by her side now, and her voice was low and sweet as she answered gently, "Because Grandmother is lying in there."
Corliss let go of the doorknob as if it had been something terribly hot. She turned frightened eyes on her cousin.
"What do you mean?" she almost screamed. "Do you mean that you have kept a dead person in the house and then let us come here to stay? Why, how perfectly gruesome! I think that is ghastly! I couldn't think of staying in the house, going to sleep, with a dead person in the next room. I should go mad! Mother, are you going to allow this to go on? I won't sleep here. I simply won't. Not with a dead woman in the house. You'll have to do something about it!"
Then Aunt Blanche came forward.
"Dale, you don't mean that Grandmother's body has not been taken to the undertaker's yet? Why, I cannot understand such negligence. Who arranged all this anyway? Did you, a young girl, presume to do it?"
"No, Aunt Blanche, Grandmother made all the arrangements. She said she wanted to stay here till she was taken to her final resting place, and she sent for the undertaker herself and made all the arrangements."
"How horrible!" said the aunt. "Well, it's evident we shall have to get another undertaker and have the body taken away at once. We can't let this go on. Corliss is a very nervous, temperamental child. The doctor says she must not be excited unduly. Suppose you call up another undertaker, and I will talk with him and have this thing fixed. We'll have the funeral in some funeral parlor. I somehow knew I should have come yesterday."
But Dale stood quite still and looked at her aunt. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Aunt Blanche, but it will be impossible to change the arrangements."
"Nonsense! Leave it to me. I'll cancel the arrangements quick enough. I'll just tell the man we'll not pay him, and he'll get out quick enough."
"He is paid, Aunt Blanche. Grandmother paid him herself. She wanted to save us from having any trouble at the end, she said."
The aunt turned a face of frozen indignation. "All paid! How ridiculous! Grandmother must have been quite crazy at the end. She had no right to do this. I shall refuse to let this house be used for the service."
"I'm afraid you wouldn't have the right to do that, Aunt Blanche."
"Not have the right? What do you mean? The house will of course eventually be mine. I certainly have the right to do what I will with my own property, and I do not intend to have any funeral here to spoil the sale of the house. You see, I have found a purchaser for it already. Someone I met on the train, and he's coming here to-morrow morning to look the house over. We certainly can't let him see a funeral and dead people here. He would never want to buy it under those circumstances, so gruesome."
A wave of color flew up into Dale's cheeks and then receded suddenly as she remembered her promises to her grandmother not to get angry in talking with her aunt, but to remember to take a deep breath and lift her heart in prayer when she felt tempted. Grandmother had been so anxious that all things should be done decently and in order, and she must have known, too, just what provocative things might be said. So Dale drew a deep breath with partly closed eyes for an instant and a lifting of her heart to God for help.
"Why, the house isn't for sale, Aunt Blanche," she said quite sweetly, in a pleasant tone.
"What do you mean?" screamed the lady. "Do you mean to say that the house has already been sold and Grandmother was only renting it? I always understood that it was her own."
But just then Corliss raised her voice from the foot of the stairs. "Mother, if you stand there and chew the rag with Dale any longer, you won't get anything done, and I simply won't stay in his house to-night the way things are. I feel as if I was about to faint this minute. Where is my medicine? I'm going to faint. I am! Come quick!" And Corliss slumped down on the stairs and dropped her head back on the step above, rolling her eyes and gasping for breath.
Her mother flew wildly down the stairs, wafting back angry words to Dale: "There, see what you've done now! You'd better send for a doctor. These spells of hers are sometimes very serious. Powelton! Powelton! Where are you? Go out in the kitchen and get a pitcher of cold water, and a glass and spoon, and then look in my black bag for Corliss's medicine. Be quick about it, too."
Corliss was presently restored to sufficient