“Oh!” cried Ernie, with an ecstatic little prance. “May I truly come? That’s the one thing needed to make the day perfect!”
“Ask your mamma to come with you,” smiled Aunt Adelaide;—for the old breach seems really healed at last. Our mutual anxiety over Geof and Robin has brought us closer together than anything else could ever have done. “Tell her please that there is a little matter Uncle George and I want to talk over with her.”
“Yes; certainly I will,” returned Ernie; while Meta asked, with a glance at the posy in my button-hole:
“Did Robin get many flowers for Easter?”
“Indeed he did,” I returned; “a pot of pansies, a lily, a purple hyacinth, and a beautiful crimson rambler. It is one mass of bloom. It came just before church, and there was no card, so we have been guessing ever since.”
Meta nodded her head in a satisfied way. “He and Geof ought to have something pretty,” she said. “They have been sick so long, and it must be horrid to lie in bed with nothing but the wallpaper to look at. I think it’s rather nice to send Easter cards with Easter flowers, instead of your name, don’t you?”
Then we separated, and I thought no more of Meta’s remark; but this afternoon when Ernie stole on tiptoe into Geof’s room, the first thing she noticed, after the patient, of course, was a second crimson rambler rose, the exact duplicate of Robin’s.
“Where did it come from, Geof?” asked Ernie, hoping to clear up the mystery of Bobsie’s plant. “Was there any card?”
“Why, no,” answered Geof. His poor hands were those of a skeleton; his voice was a whisper; his eyes seemed the only living thing left. When Ernie looked at him, she wanted to kiss him and cry;—but that would not have been cheering, so she asked about the crimson rambler, instead.
“It came this morning, just before church. Meta brought it up. There wasn’t any visiting card, but there was this Easter affair with the moulting angel. I told Meta he’d make a big mistake if he tried to fly with those wings; and she didn’t seem to like it much, though she said, ‘I was undoubtedly an authority on the subject!’ It’s the first natural remark she’s made to me since I’ve been sick,” added Geof, with a weak little chuckle. “I,—I rather think I liked it.”