“Aunt Delia Parmentre,” she returned, a little surprised, evidently, at this stranger, who, with a straw sailor-hat in one hand and a warm molasses cooky in the other, stared so intently at her. “She wasn't really my aunt, of course--” “But she was mine!” he burst out, “and these are her cookies, and no mistake. Who are you?” Again she flushed, but more lightly. “I am Miss Redding,” she said with a gentle dignity, “Mrs. Wilton's sister.” He stared at her vaguely. “Mrs. Wilton--oh! you're her sister? I didn't know--” He stopped abruptly. As his confusion grew, her own faded away. “You didn't know she had one?” she asked, almost mischievously. “I didn't know you were here,” he recovered himself. “You've never been with Mrs. Dud before, have you?” “No, not here when there was company,” she said. He hardly noticed the words; his mind was groping among past histories. “Her sister--her sister,” he muttered. “Why, then,” with an illuminating smile, “I used to go to school with you! I'm Tom Varian!” She smiled and held out her hand. “I'm very glad to see you,” she said cordially. “Won't you--” She looked about for a chair, but he dropped on the grass at her feet. “You've changed since we met last,” he remarked, biting into his cooky. She looked at his bronzed face and thick silvered hair and nodded thoughtfully. “I was six years old then,” she said; “and you were one of the 'big boys'--you were fourteen.” “That's a long while,” he suggested laughingly. “It is thirty-six years,” she replied simply. He winced. His associates were not accustomed to be so scrupulously accurate. It seemed indecently long ago. And yet there was a certain charm, now one faced it, a quaint halo of interest. “You used to hand me water in a tin dipper,” he said. She nodded. “Yes, that was for a reward, when I was good,” she said seriously. “I could hand the water to the big boys. I was very proud of it. You drank a great deal.” He chuckled. “I was born thirsty,” he acknowledged. “By George, how it comes back! I can see it now, that school-house! Funny little red thing--remember how it looked? Big shelf around the sides for a desk, and another under that for the books? Bench all round the room to sit on, and we just whopped our legs over and faced round to recite? And carved--Lord! I don't believe there was an inch of the wood, all told, that was clear! I nearly cut my thumb off there, one day.” “One of the big girls fainted away,” she added, “and they laid her on the floor and told me to bring a dipper of water; but my hand shook so I spilled it all over my apron, and she came to before we got more. I was very timid.” He began on another cooky. “Did you have two pigtails? And striped stockings?” he inquired, his eyes fixed reminiscently on the hedge. She nodded softly. “And played some game with stones? I can't just remember--”