“I promise, nevertheless, that you shall have the place whenever you want it.”
“Even though some one else should take my place,—some one perfectly satisfactory? That would not be fair.”
“Whoever takes your place will do so with the full knowledge and understanding that he or she is to be ‘bounced’—to use Porter’s pet word—when you return with laurels upon your brow, unless you are so given over to superior wisdom that the children’s page can no longer interest you.”
Persis thoughtfully suspended a cracker midway to her mouth. “You suggest such possibilities that I can scarcely grasp them,” she said, presently. “I was thinking of the ambitious plans Annis and I have made, and wondering if they would ever be worked out. But then I wonder, wonder, wonder all the time. It seems to me every day brings some new mystery. But there, I have talked enough, and eaten enough, too. I must go to work, or there will be wonderings on the part of the family concerning my whereabouts.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
A PILGRIMAGE.
For a long time Persis had been possessed of a desire to take a certain trip with her grandmother to the “ancestral halls,” as she called them, and, to her great joy, Mrs. Estabrook announced to her one day that she had planned the outing for the Easter holidays.
“I’ll get my work all in order, and make up my page of the paper ahead of my usual number, so it will all be plain sailing when I get back, and I shall have an easy conscience while I am away,” Persis said, delightedly. “Oh, grandma, I have so wanted to take this journey. I’ve not been to the haunts of the ancestors since I was a wee thing. I can remember one or two of the places, an old garden where there were so many little low pear trees,—dwarf pears. I used to imagine they called them so because the trees belonged to a dwarf, and I was afraid to touch them. I can remember, too, how I ran away once and went over to some one’s house, where I was treated royally. Where was it? I can barely remember the place and the nice, kind man who took me in charge. Who was he?”
“Cousin Ambrose Peyton,” returned Mrs. Estabrook.
“Is he still living, and shall we see him?”