“Remarkably so, considering the object of your devotion,” laughed Mrs. Dixon. “You are ready for some hot chocolate I hope. We’ll have it with some cake in the library. Where is Walter?”
“He has gone to remove his villany,” said Persis, laughing. “Did you ever see such an evil-looking wretch as he made of himself with that fierce black moustache?”
“Where did he get it?” asked Connie.
“It’s a piece of monkey fur,” replied Persis. “I think Walter is very ingenious. I do wish you lived nearer us, Mrs. Dixon, we could all have such good times together; just like one family, for Walter, being Basil’s cousin, would make him one of us.”
“I sometimes wish so, too,” returned Mrs. Dixon, “although we have many ties here, and Walter has some pleasant friends among his college-mates. I should be glad, however, if he had a sister. I think it would be better for him to be thrown more with nice girls, for, close friends as we two are, the society of young people is good for him, and I often think how pleasant it would have been for him if his little sister had lived, and they could have had the same circle of friends.”
“And we three Holmes girls have no brother,” said Persis. “Oh, yes; we count Basil and Porter as brothers now, so the family isn’t so one-sided as it used to be. I like Basil better than Porter, but they are both nice boys, and we all have lively times at home, I can tell you.”
Monday morning came all too soon, notwithstanding Persis’s homesick attack of Thanksgiving-day. “I have had such a good time,” she told Mrs. Dixon as she took her leave.
And yet she went back home in quite a subdued frame of mind.
“I am wild to hear what sort of a time you had,” said Lisa, on their way home from school, for an early train had given Connie and Persis barely time to reach school by nine o’clock.
“Oh, I had a nice time,” said Persis, rather vaguely.