in. Mary was about to follow, when he turned to her and held out his other arm. With an answering smile she placed her hand within it, and all three went inside.
Aunt Lettice had gone off to her own apartments, taking 'Bitha for her usual morning instructing, and so they were not likely to be disturbed.
As soon as her father was seated, Dorothy, standing by the window, burst forth with her accustomed vehemence.
"I want to tell you, father," she exclaimed, "that I am sure Aunt Penine is a loyalist!"
"Chut, chut!" he replied reprovingly. But he smiled, used as he was to the differences betwixt his daughter and her exacting relative.
"I have good reason for what I say," Dorothy insisted; "and Mary can tell you so, as well."
"Well, child, first tell me all about it, and do not begin by misnaming any one," her father said gently.
She told him in a few rapid words, – first, what had happened the evening before, and ending by a detailed account of finding the tea in the store-closet.
Her father was scowling ominously by the time the story was finished; and he sat in silence for a few moments, his head bent, as though considering what she had told him. Then he said: "I thank you, my child, for what you have told me. I must speak with Penine o' these matters, and that right away. Do you go, Dot, and tell her I wish to talk with her, and must do so as soon as she can see me in her room."
"Why not let Mary go?" Dorothy suggested. "Aunt Penine likes Mary, and she does not like me – nor I her." And she looked quite belligerent.
"I will be glad to go, if you say so," Mary offered, rising from her chair.
"Well, well," he said, "it matters little to me who goes; only I must see her at once. And thank you, Mary, child, if you will kindly tell her so."
As soon as Mary left the room, Dorothy came over to her father's chair and perched herself upon one of its oaken arms.
"And now there is another thing I wish to tell you," she said, "and I'd best do it now."
He put an arm about her and smiled up into her troubled face.
"Well, well," he said playfully, while he smoothed her curls, "what a wise little head it has grown to be all on a sudden! We shall be hearing soon that Mistress Dorothy Devereux has been invited by the great men o' the town – Lee and Orne and Gerry, and the rest o' them – to be present at their next meeting, and instruct them on matters they wot not on, despite their age and wisdom."
She would not smile at his badinage, but went on soberly to warn him of what she suspected between her Aunt Penine and their ostracized neighbor, Jameson, – telling him also of the unusual amount of coin being spent by the boy, Pashar, whom she had seen carrying notes for her aunt.
The smile left her father's face as he listened to this, and he shook his head gravely. And when she finished, he said, as though to himself, "'T is the enemies in one's own household that are ever the most dangerous." Then rising, he added, "Come with me, Dot, while I speak first to Tyntie."
The old Indian woman had been devoted to the interests of the family since forty years before, when Joseph Devereux found her – a beaten, half-starved child of ten – living with her drunken father in a wretched hut on the outskirts of the town, and brought her to his own house for his wife to rear and instruct. And because of her idolatrous love for her benefactor and his family, she had endured patiently the exacting tyranny of Aunt Penine, whom she detested.
Her tall, spare figure was now moving about her domain with a curious dignity inseparable from her Indian birth; but she paused in what she was doing the moment her master and his daughter appeared at the door, and remained facing them in respectful silence.
She was alone, the men having gone off to their duties about the farm, and the maids to the dairy, or to the housework above stairs.
"I desire to ask you, Tyntie," her master began, addressing her with the same grave courtesy he would have used in speaking to the best-born lady in the land, "if, since I forbade the making or using o' tea in my house, any has been brewed?"
"Yes, master," she answered without any hesitancy; and a sly look, as of revenge, crept into her black eyes.
"How dared ye do such a thing?" he demanded, his face severe with indignation.
"I never did it," was her laconic reply.
"Then who did? I command ye to make a clean breast o' the matter." And he struck his stick peremptorily upon the floor, while Dorothy, awed by the unusual anger showing in his voice and bearing, drew a little away from him.
"It was Mistress Penine brewed the tea, for her own drinking." And Tyntie showed actual pleasure in being thus enabled to expose her oppressor.
"And how often hath this happened since I gave strict orders that none should be had or drunk in this house o' mine?"
"'Most every day; and sometimes more than once in the day."
"And how were you guarding your master's interests, to permit such secret goings on under his roof, without giving him warning?"
The tears rose to Tyntie's eyes and stood sparkling there; but her voice was firm as she replied, "It was not for me to know that Mistress Penine was doing anything wrongful, nor for me, a servant, to come to you, my master, with evil reports o' your own kinsfolk."
She spoke slowly and with calm dignity, and her words softened the white wrath from the old man's face.
He bent his head for a moment, as though pondering deeply; then he looked at her and said in a very different tone: "You are a right-minded, faithful servant, Tyntie, and I must tell you I am sorry to have spoken as I did a moment agone. But from this day henceforth, bear in mind that should you ever see aught being done under my roof that you've heard me forbid, 't is your bounden duty to come and inform me freely o' such matter."
"Yes, master." Tyntie now wiped her eyes, and looked very much comforted.
"Now," he asked, his voice growing stern once more, "know you where aught o' the forbidden stuff be kept, or if there still be any in the house?"
Tyntie went silently to the store-closet and fetched a sizable can of burnished copper. This she opened and held toward her master and young mistress, who saw that it was nearly half filled with the prohibited tea.
Joseph Devereux scowled fiercely as he beheld this tangible evidence of Penine's bad faith and selfishness.
"Do you take that in your own hands, Tyntie, as soon as may be," he said; "or no – take it this instant, down to the beach, and throw it, can and all, into the water. And see to it that you make mention o' this matter to no one."
Then turning slowly, he took his way again to the front of the house, Dorothy following in silence, and feeling unwontedly awed by the apprehension of the storm she felt was about to break; for it was a rare matter indeed for Aunt Penine to be the one entirely at fault in anything.
CHAPTER X
Dorothy saw Mary Broughton on the porch outside and was about to join her, when Mary turned and called out, "Aunt Penine is waiting to see your father."
At this Dorothy retraced her steps to the library, where she had left her father sitting in moody silence, tracing with his stick invisible writings upon the floor,
