"My dear girls!" the woman in the gray cloak said, with a hand on a shoulder of each of the younger Corner House girls, "how providential it was that you saw my danger. I am very much obliged to you. And how brave you both were!"
"Thank you, ma'am," said Tess, who seldom forgot her manners.
But Dot was greatly excited. "Oh, my!" she gasped, clinging tightly to the Alice-doll, and quite breathless. "My--my pulse _did_ jump so!"
"Did it? You funny little thing," said the woman, half laughing and half crying. "What do you know about a pulse?"
"Oh, I know it's a muscle that bumps up and down, and the doctor feels it to see if you're better next time he comes," blurted out Dot, nothing loath to show what knowledge she thought she possessed.
"Oh, my dear!" cried the lady, laughing heartily now. And, dropping down upon the very bench where Tess and Dot had been sitting, she drew the two children to seats beside her. "Oh, my dear! I shall have to tell that to Dr. Forsyth."
"Oh!" ejaculated Tess, who was looking at the pink-cheeked lady with admiring eyes. "Oh! _we_ know Dr. Forsyth. He is our doctor."
"Is he, indeed? And who are you?" responded the lady, the sad look on her face quite disappearing now that she talked so animatedly with the little Kenways.
"We are Dot and Tess Kenway," said Tess. "I'm Tess. We live just over there," and she pointed to the big, old-fashioned mansion across the Parade Ground.
"Ah, then," said the woman in the gray cloak, "you are the Corner House girls. I have heard of you."
"We are only two of them," said Dot, quickly. "There's four."
"Ah! then you are only half the quartette."
"I don't believe we are _half_--do you, Tess?" said Dot, seriously. "You see," she added to the lady, "Ruthie and Aggie are so much bigger than we are."
The lady in the gray cloak laughed again. "You are all four of equal importance, I have no doubt. And you must be very happy together--you sisters." The sad look returned to her face. "It must be lovely to have three sisters."
"Didn't you ever have any at all?" asked Dot, sympathetically.
"I had a sister once--one very dear sister," said the lady, thoughtfully, and looking away across the Parade Ground.
Tess and Dot gazed at each other questioningly; then Tess ventured to ask: