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Without stopping to analyze these remarks too closely, Hildegarde said a few more soothing words, and then went straight to the matter in hand. "Mrs. Lankton, can you tell us anything about a game the children have been playing, the game of 'The Highland Gates? We are very much interested in it, Miss Merryweather and I, this is Miss Merryweather, and we want to know what it means."
"Oh!" cried Hildegarde, eagerly, "there is Mrs. Lankton, and she will know all about it." "Yes," chimed in the children, in every variety of shrill treble. "Widder Lankton, SHE'LL know all about it, sure!" Mrs. Lankton was surrounded in a moment, and brought up on the piazza. Here she sat, turning her head from side to side, like a lean and pensive parrot, and struggling to get her breath.
"It began with obedience to my elders and betters. You told me to go down and see how Mrs. Lankton's 'neurology' was; and I went. I found the poor old thing in bed, and moaning piteously. I am bound to say, however, that the moans did not begin till after I clicked the latch. It is frightful to see how suspicious a course of Mrs. Lankton always makes me.
Lankton!" said Hildegarde, soothingly, while she quieted with a look Bell's horrified anxiety. "I think you will be able to go in and get a cup of tea presently, won't you? And that will take away the pain, I hope." Mrs. Lankton's countenance assumed a repressed cheerfulness. "You may be right, dear!" she said.
"To be sure, my dear!" cried the Widow Lankton. "'The Highland Gates to Die. Dear me, yes! if ever a person could tell you and Miss Bellflower, is it? Ah! she looks rugged, now; don't she? and livin' in the old Shannon house, too.
Hildegarde was silent, and tried the effect of gazing severely at the widow, apparently with some success, for after a pause of head-shaking, Mrs. Lankton continued: "But as you was saying, dearie, about the game. Ye es!
"To be sure, dearie! to be sure!" acquiesced Mrs. Lankton with alacrity. "'T is a fine game, and anncient, as you may say. Why, my grandmother taught me to play 'The Highland Gates' when I was no bigger than you, Vesta Philbrook. Ah! many's the time I played it with my sister Salome, and she died just about your age." "Well, Mrs. Lankton," said Hildegarde, encouragingly.
It was merely, "The Highland Gates to Die," and they had always played it, and everybody else always played it, that was all they knew. At this moment a well-known brown bonnet was seen bobbing apologetically up the drive; the Widow Lankton had been making frantic efforts to catch Hildegarde's eye, and now succeeding, began a series of crab-like bows.
Miss Grahame here can tell you of some of the trouble I've seen, though she don't know not a quarter part of it." "Oh yes, Mrs. Lankton," said Hildegarde, with what seemed to wondering Bell rather a scant measure of sympathy; "Miss Merryweather shall hear all about it, surely. But will you tell us now about the game, please? We want to know so very much!"
Lankton," she said, gravely, "I am sure Auntie has the kettle on, and you will be the better for your tea, so will you not tell us as quickly as you can, please, about the game? The children are waiting, you see, to go on with their play." "Jest what I was going to say, dear," cried Mrs. Lankton.
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