They talked it over—Miss Churchill and her brother, then Miss Churchill and mamma. And this came out of it all, as if we were to be in the midst of everything.
They would go to Martha’s Vineyard. In earlier years they had spent whole summers there. And she and Miss Lucy wanted us. We had seen so little outside of our own home, that the change would do us good. There was the great sea, the islands all about, and a new world, so to speak.
“I don’t know how to get both of them ready,” mamma exclaimed in a hopeless puzzle.
“You are thinking of the dresses—but we are not going to be fashionable. Some nice light worsted goods for traveling, and beyond that there is nothing as pretty as white. We shall have a cottage to ourselves and our meals sent in. Then I intend to take Martha, who is an excellent laundress, so the dresses will be no trouble. Kenton is counting on the pleasure, and you must not refuse.”
“It is a great—favor,” said mamma timidly.
“I don’t want you to think of it in that light. Kenton and I are getting along in years, and Lucy will not last forever. We might as well take and give a little pleasure. It is just as if a sister asked you.”
And it actually came about. We had new gray dresses trimmed with bands of pongee; Fan’s a shade lighter and mine two or three shades darker than the material. When they were all finished they had cost but twenty-three dollars. Our spring straw hats were retrimmed, our gloves and ribbons and boots looked over.
“One trunk will hold our modest wardrobe,” declared Fan. “I often think of the Vicar of Wakefield and the many devices the girls resorted to. It is rather funny to be poor, after all! You are not so much worried and fidgeted and dissatisfied. You take the best you can get, and you know you cannot do any better. So you enjoy the tour or the journey or whatever it is, because you are altogether outside of your troublesome self.”
“But you will be—very well off—some day,” I said with bashful hesitation.
“I don’t think of that, any more. Until the very day of my marriage my life is here. What papa can give me will always be infinitely precious to me. We will have all the happiness out of our poverty that we can.”