"Why, no, Mrs. Evans, thank you, I don't think I ought, for I didn't tell mother I would stay."
"Then let William take you home; it is too warm to walk. The horses haven't been very far, and William can drive slowly."
So the two little girls parted and Edna returned to her own home. She was not long in finding her mother, and in plying her with questions upon the all-important subject, but she received no further assurance than had been given her in the beginning and was fain to exercise her patience and unburden herself to her sister Celia, who was interested and sympathetic. But at last even Celia became tired of the topic and went off to take a nap in her own room. So Edna went down to a cool spot at the [21] back of the house where there was a little stream, and tried to amuse herself with a book.
But even her favorite fairy tales failed to fix her attention, so she returned to the house to find everyone given up to napping and the place so still that finally in the coolest corner of the library where a little breeze found its way through the open windows, she herself fell asleep.
When she awoke it was to hear her father's voice saying: "Hallo! who is this? The Sleeping Beauty?"
"Oh, Papa," cried Edna, awake in a moment, "how nice and early you have come home."
"It was too hot to stay in the city any longer than necessary," her father told her. "There wasn't much doing, so I thought I would be better off here."
"I called you up on the 'phone this morning," said Edna, "but you weren't at the office."
"And what did you want of me?"
"Mother will tell you," answered Edna, suddenly shy of meeting a decision which might disappoint her.