“Poor boys!” said mamma. “And Stephen is coming. Why, he will be here to-morrow afternoon. This letter has been delayed on its way;” and mamma glanced at the date and the postmark.
The children were through, and we rose from the table. There was a perfect hubbub of questions then. Lily swung on father’s arm, while Tim took a leg, and they were all eagerness to know about the brothers.
“Mamma will have to consider the subject,” he said. “Come, let us go out and look at the flower-beds. I dare say the rain brought up a regiment of weeds last night.”
Fanny went to put her room in order; Nelly had some buttons to sew on her school dress, and followed mamma to the nursery. Becky came in and helped take the dishes to the kitchen; while I went to my chambers up stairs.
I hurried a little, I must confess. Then I bundled the youngsters off to school, and ran into the nursery. Mamma was washing and dressing baby.
“What about the boys?” I asked. “Will they really come? Should you like to have them?”
“Perhaps it would be as well for you to read the letter, Rose. You are old enough to be taken into family council. It seems so odd, too! Only last evening papa and I were talking about—”
Mamma made so long a pause that I glanced up from the letter, having only read the preface, as one might say. There was a perplexed look on the sweet face.
“What is it, mamma?” and I knelt beside her, kissing baby’s fat cheek.
“My dear, I resolved long ago never to burden my girls with cares and worries before their time. And yet, it would be so delightful to have you for a friend! A clergyman’s wife has to be doubly discreet on some points. Now, if I was to say to two or three good friends in the parish, ‘Our circumstances are somewhat straightened by the recent expenses,’ they would, no doubt, seek to make it up in some way. But I have a horror of anything that looks like begging.”