Primrose danced down the stairs and through the hall. "Oh, Andrew!" she cried, as she was clasped in the fond arms.
Then he held her off a bit. No, Faith could not compare with her. Yet Faith had blue eyes, a fair skin, and light hair, straight and rather stringy and cut short in her neck. But these eyes were like a glint of heaven on a most radiant day, these curving red lips were full of smiles and sweetness, and this lovely hair, this becoming and graceful attire——
"Oh, why do you sigh!" in a pretty, imperious fashion. "Are you not glad to see me? I thought you had forgotten me. It is such a long, long while."
"Did I sigh? I was surprised. Thou art like a sweet, blossomy rose with the morning dew upon it."
"Prim Rose." She drew her face down a little, drooped her eyes, and let her arms hang at her side in a demure fashion, and though Andrew's vocabulary had few descriptive adjectives in it, he felt she was distractingly pretty. He wanted to kiss her again and again, but refrained with Quaker self-restraint.
She laughed softly. "Madam Shippen was here one day with big Miss Peggy, who can laugh and be gay like any little girl, and who is so pretty—not like my dear mother in the frame, but—oh, I can't find a word, and I am learning so many new ones, too. But one would just like to kneel at her feet, and draw a long breath. And she took hold of my hands and we skipped about in the hall with the new step Master Bagett taught me. And Madam Shippen said I was 'most like a rose, and that if I became a Friend I should be called Prim alone, since the name would be suitable. And Madam Wetherill said I was divided, like my name. When will it be time to go to the farm?"
"Would it be a great disappointment if thou didst not go?" he asked gravely.
"What has happened, cousin?"
Her sweet face took instant alarm. The smiles shaped themselves to a sudden unspoken sympathy.
"A great many things have happened." He would have liked to draw her down to his knee as he had seen Penn hold his sister Faith and comfort her for the loss of their mother. But Primrose did not need comforting. He kept his arm about her and drew her nearer to him.