a puzzled way. Eli raised his old eyes to her face, then lowered them. He colored, and hitched uneasily. What
Deborah next asked was unexpected.
"Who's been here?" she said.
"I didn't say anybody had been here."
Deborah lifted high, thin nostrils and sniffed. She had an uncannily keen sense of smell. "The house smells
different, somehow," said she. "Anybody been to the door?"
Eli thought with a gasp of relief who had been to the door besides the boy. Mrs. John Cummings had called
and asked if Deborah were home. "Mis' Cummin's," said he.
Deborah sniffed. "It was never Alma Cummings," said she. "She's always been frying doughnuts. I can always
tell her. She didn't go in the house, either, did she?"
"She stood here and asked if you was home."
"That smell I smell is all through the sitting-room and the dark bedroom. I went in there to lay my things away
till I had a chance to go up-stairs."
"Mebbe you brought it from the electric car," ventured Eli.
Deborah shook her head. She was so keen of smell that she was easily convinced of error. Sometimes it
seemed to lapse into the realm of imagination. "Maybe I imagined it," she said. "I've smelled roses when the
snow was two feet deep, and I knew there were no roses within smelling distance. Dinner 'll be ready before
long now."
Deborah re-entered the house and soon Eli sniffed beefsteak broiling.
He was prepared for almost anything, but not for what happened. Suddenly, with a leap as of a young girl and
a soft flop of skirts, Deborah had passed him, as he sat on the door-step, and stood facing him. She was deadly
pale, but in her eyes was an expression he had never seen in them. It was incredible, but it seemed an
expression of exulting joy, past belief.
"Who --?" said Deborah. Then she stopped.
Eli also was pale. He stared up at her.
"Who --?" began Deborah again. She did not finish for the second time. To Eli's utter astonishment, she
pushed past him again. "Come right in when I call you," said she. "I don't want the things to get cold."
"I swan!" muttered Old Man Edgewater.
It was not long before Deborah called him, and he rose promptly and obeyed her summons. Deborah hardly
gave him time to eat his beefsteak and vegetables before she shoved his plate aside for another with a wedge
of pie. Eli himself felt hurried. He was in momentary anticipation that Wash Townsley would wake and
appear, clad in Deborah's best nightgown. He felt cold when he thought of it. He was glad when the meal was
over and he was back on the door-step.
He was soon astonished again, for Deborah came out with her sun-hat on. "I'm going down to Coleman's store
a minute," said she. "I've got an errand. I sha'n't be gone long. I'm going to leave the dishes until I come back."