Chapter Twelve.
The Home-Coming.
“I don’t believe I ever was so glad of anything in all my life,” said Nancy.
She was sitting with Pennie in a favourite place of theirs, a broad window-seat at the end of a passage which looked out on the garden. It was a snug private sort of corner, and when they had any particular bit of work, or any matter they wished to talk over without the boys, it was always their habit to retire there. This morning something very special had happened. A letter from mother to Miss Grey, inclosing one for the children, to say that they were all coming back on Monday. To-day was Saturday. Only one more day and two more nights before mother and father, Dickie, baby, and nurse, would be in their right places, and the house would feel natural again.
The boys, after hearing the news, had at once rushed upstairs to the museum and had not been seen since, though, as Nancy said, there was nothing more they could possibly do to it, unless they made it untidy for the pleasure of putting it straight. For the museum was now in very fine order, with all its shelves full, and all its specimens neatly labelled and arranged. The doctor himself had climbed the steep staircase to pay a visit to it, and squeezed himself with difficulty through the low doorway. True, there was only one corner in it where he could stand upright, because the roof sloped so much and he was so tall; but if it had been a palace he could not have admired it more, or looked more really pleased with everything in it.
The boys, therefore, were quite satisfied; there could not be a better thing to celebrate the return than to open the museum. But Pennie and Nancy were quite outside all this, and they had a strong feeling that they too would like to do something remarkable on Monday. Only what should it be?
“It’s of no use at all to keep on saying you’re glad,” said Pennie. “Of course we’re glad, but what can we do to show it?”
“Couldn’t we decorate the house,” said Nancy, “like Christmas?”
“It would be better than nothing,” said Pennie, but she evidently did not think it much of an idea.
“What do you call those things that emperors drive under when they come back from wars?” asked Nancy suddenly.