"I am glad you told us," said Edna, "for now we shall always remember how good she is, and we shall love her more than ever, but we can't help loving you best, Miss Eloise."
"Oh, my dear, don't say that. I don't deserve half as much love as sister."
[157] However this might be, it was a fact that no one could help loving Miss Eloise the best, though the little girls said to one another that night, "We must try to be extra nice to Miss Newman next year, because Miss Eloise wants us to."
It seemed quite as if it were time to go when the little bungalow was closed and the cottages, one after another, showed no sign of lights at night. There was a sound of hammers over on the point where the new house was going up for Cap'n Si, and it was expected the family would move in by Christmas. The children wondered what kind of furniture would be bought with the two hundred dollars, but this they could not know till next year. However, Amelia told Jennie that her ma rather guessed they'd have a parlor organ if they didn't have anything else, and Amelia was much set up in consequence.
"Dear me," said Mrs. Ramsey when she was told this, "I was afraid of that. It is just like these people. But what is one to do?"
The days were growing shorter and September was well on its way when the trunks were packed ready for the start for home. "I should feel dreadfully about your going if I didn't expect to see you so soon," said Jennie the night before her friends were to leave.
"We have had the loveliest time," Edna told her, "and we're such intimate friends now that I am [158]sure we shall never be anything else, even when we are very old."
But here Mrs. Ramsey appeared to say that if all three were to sleep in one bed, as they had begged to be allowed to do this last night, they must stop chattering and go to sleep. So there were only faint whispers for a little while after that and then these ceased.
[159][CHAPTER XI]
OLD NORTH CHURCH
"I am so mixed up in my feelings," said Edna in confidence to Dorothy when they were seated in the train. "I want awfully to see them all at home, but yet I hate to leave here."