"Oh, thank you, dear Miss Lucy," cried Elizabeth, beaming with pleasure at the gift, and even more at the feeling of still being friends with the Gordon children which the little talk had given her. "I keep it always with me, and I often look at it and think of you."
She tucked the picture in the pocket of her apron and went off down-stairs, while Lucy, with a sudden return of the lump in her throat, sat down at her desk to mail a set of the pictures to Bob.
When Mrs. Gordon came home late that afternoon with her husband, in great need of being cheered and comforted, for the activity at Fort Totten spoke plainly of the regiment's departure, Lucy and Marian met her at the door with welcoming faces. Lucy had overcome her low spirits at last, with the satisfaction of angrily calling herself unpatriotic names, and she was firmly entrenched now behind her resolution of courageous cheerfulness.
No one had more courage than Mrs. Gordon, and her trouble did not show itself long, but Lucy's sympathetic heart could guess it, even out of sight. Mrs. Gordon was used enough to seeing men called away to hazardous service. She had seen her husband go off to the Spanish War as a young lieutenant, to China at the time of the Boxer uprising, and to the Mexican border only a year ago. She knew that Bob must take his chosen place, but he seemed so young to go. This year, that would have made him a first classman at West Point, found him still a boy in his mother's eyes, not grown to the measure of man's trials and hardships. It had to be, and Bob's mother knew it and submitted, but it was hard.
Major Gordon was tired with a long day's tedious work, and the family sat out on the cool piazza, where William ate his supper, while Mrs. Gordon told the little news she had of Bob's fellow officers and surroundings. William played on the floor with his new pet, from whom he refused to be separated, the puppy's big, awkward paws flopping in every direction and his furry body squirming with excitement when William pretended to be another dog and jumped at him. Nobody could help smiling at the jolly little beast, or at William's delight in him, and Lucy said:
"The puppy is the happiest person here. I think we need him, Father. Anyway, if you don't let us have him I think William will go over and live at the Houstons'."
"Oh, keep him if you wish to," said Major Gordon, poking a boot at the puppy, who at once grabbed it in his little teeth and rolled over and over. "Only don't let him get to chewing up my clothes, William, or out he goes. What's his name?"
"You said he was happy, Lucy, let's call him that," suggested William, grabbing his pet with both hands.