"Oh, I'm so glad, Marian," cried Lucy warmly, "but I don't want you to go away a bit—will you have to?"
"I don't know. Father says he may have to go back West. I don't want to leave here, either, Lucy. It's just that I will be so glad to see him again." She turned back eagerly to the letter. "I must see what else he says."
Mr. Leslie had written of the overwhelming rush of work in the lumber camps and of the necessity for his making a trip to Canada to unite his interests with those of some owners of Canadian forest land. The British Commission had brought valuable suggestions to the Government ship-building scheme, and he wished to make his supplies useful to the utmost possible extent.
Marian's father had a world-wide experience in other beside business ventures. His frank and attractive personality had won him friends in many countries and, with a keen mind and a large fortune at his command, he had grown to be a man of wide influence in public life. Marian knew that her father had friends among the Allied Commissions and was not surprised at his accompanying the Britishers into Canada. He was never willing to do his work except most thoroughly, and no distance was too great for him to travel if his purpose could better be served by going.
"I must show this to Cousin Sally," said Marian, when she had finished the letter. "Just one more sentence and I'll be done." She went back to her Latin, and in another few moments put down her pen and gathered up her papers. "How nearly through are you, Lucy? I'll go down and find Cousin Sally."
"Just a minute," murmured Lucy, searching for an elusive verb. "Oh, I see it now. Take your things down with you, Marian. We're going out, aren't we?"
"All right," called Marian from her room. "I'll bet it's cold," she added with sudden foreboding.
Left alone, Lucy scrambled through the last of her lesson and slammed the book shut with relief. "No more of that till Monday," she thought, pushing the book out of sight under a sofa pillow and going to the closet for her coat and tam-o'-shanter. Remembering her mother's early morning remarks, she stopped in front of the glass to put on her tam, and pushed some stray locks of hair up under it instead of pulling it on her head as she went out of the room. She left the closet door open and the ink-bottle uncorked, but then she was preoccupied in thinking of Mr. Leslie's return and hoping he would be delayed for another month, until Marian's growing activity had brought her still nearer to health.
Down-stairs she found her mother rejoicing with Marian over the good news and reading the letter aloud.
"Oh, I wish he could get here for Christmas, Cousin Sally," Marian exclaimed, when Mrs. Gordon had finished. "He is always so nice about giving things that I've never even asked for." Christmas this year seemed far more interesting than it had ever been before Marian had cousins to share it with, and the presents she had accepted heretofore with listless thanks and little appreciation held great possibilities for pleasure this year, if the Gordons could enjoy them too.