"Fall in love." She had read that in some of the books. It must be different from just loving.
"Don't be silly," said her mother, between sharpness and merriment. "Everybody falls in love sooner or later and marries. Almost everybody. And if I had not fallen in love with your father and married him, you mightn't have had so good a one."
"Oh, mother, I'm so glad you did!" She flung her arms about her mother's neck and kissed her so rapturously that the tears came to her mother's eyes. Why, she wouldn't have missed the exquisite joy of having this little girl for all the world!
"There, child, don't strangle me," was what she said, in an unsteady voice.
"But Dr. Hoffman isn't like father——"
"No, dear. And Margaret isn't like me, now. They are young, and maybe when they have been married a good many years they will be just as happy, growing old together. And since Margaret loves him and he loves her—why, we are all delighted with Dolly. She's just another daughter."
"But we have a good many sons," said the little girl, without seeing the humor of it.
"Yes, we didn't really need him, just yet. But he's Joe's dear friend and a nice young man, and your father is satisfied. It's the way of the world. Little girls can't understand it very well, but they always do when they're grown up. There, go hang up your bonnet, and then you may set the table."
Yes, it was a great mystery. Margaret seemed suddenly set apart, made sacred in some way. Hanny's intensity of thought had no experience to shape or restrain it. All the girls had liked Charles,—perhaps if there had been several boys and spasms of jealousy between the girls, she might have been roused to a more correct idea. But though they had made him the father, a lover had been quite outside of their simple category.
Margaret came down presently. She had on her pretty brown merino trimmed with bands of scarlet velvet, and at her throat a white bow just edged with scarlet. Her front hair was curled in ringlets.