The decorations were very much admired, and Ambrose, who was nervously impatient to show the museum, soon thought that more than enough attention had been given to them. He grew quite vexed with Pennie and Nancy as they pointed out fresh beauties.
“Let mother and father come upstairs now,” he said impatiently.
And at last they were on their way.
“What can you have to show us at the very top of the house?” asked their father as he climbed the last flight of steep stairs.
Ambrose and David had run on before, and now stood one on each side of the entrance, their whole figures big with importance, and too excited even to smile. Ambrose had prepared a speech, but he could not remember it all.
“We are glad to welcome you to the new museum at Easney,” he said to his mother, “and, and—”
“And we hope,” added David, “that you will declare it open, and allow it to be called the Mary Hawthorne Museum.”
It was a moment which had been looked forward to with eagerness and delight during the past weeks, but when it really came it was even more satisfactory. When Mr and Mrs Hawthorne had left home the museum was a dusty neglected place which no one cared to enter; its very name seemed to mean trouble and disgrace; its empty shelves were like a painful reproach.
How different it looked now! Bright, clean, prosperous, with not a speck of dust anywhere, and as full as it could be of really interesting specimens. The proud little owners displayed its treasures eagerly, and there was a great deal to be told of how Dr Budge did this, and found that; his name came so often that Mrs Hawthorne said:
“I think it ought to be called the ‘Budge’ Museum, for the doctor seems to have had a great deal to do with it.”