"But I must study one week more," declared the little girl. "I'm going to have a beautiful French exercise,"—they didn't always adapt their adjectives to the fine shades of meaning,—"and I'm at the head in history. I want to get in the senior grade. I feel well, only tired, and my head aches sometimes."
Doctor Joe examined her pulse and nodded.
"I'll give you the week," he said; but her heart went up to her throat. What if he had not given her the week!
They all came off with flying colours. Charles's Latin was the finest; but he had been studying it several years. Jim's essay won him much praise. And the little girl achieved her heart's desire. She was in the second grade of the seniors, and would graduate in two years.
They had hardly decided what to do with her; but one day Mrs. Odell came down with Polly, who had cheeks like roses and was fat as a seal, her mother said.
"You just let her come up and stay awhile with us, and drink buttermilk, and run out of doors and play in the hay. She's lived in the city long enough for a country girl, and she wants a change to freshen up her blood. She's fairly blue, she's so white."
"That wouldn't be a bad idea," rejoined Mr. Underhill. "We could drive up every few days and see her."
Mrs. Underhill looked up much interested.
Margaret was engrossed with her baby, and then she went out driving every day, though they did talk of going away for a week the last of the summer. She was very fond of having her little sister visit her, and Hanny enjoyed the talks about books and the delightful people the Hoffmans were always meeting.
All the Beekman daughters were going to stay awhile at the farm and discuss the settlement of the estate. The city authorities were to cut two streets through it in the early autumn. They had a very fair offer for the house, from a second or third cousin who fancied he wanted a part of the old family estate. The ground, of course, was too valuable for farming purposes. Annette's husband, who was in a shipping firm then on Water Street, preferred living down-town. So Mrs. Beekman would keep the old city house, and they would live together.