"Why, we do!" cried both the girls. "Only we felt just a little bad because it looks different."
"But you knew he would grow older, didn't you?" said Cherry, tying the hat-strings. "And you could not expect them to let his coat go flying open, in the Army."
"To be sure, that is just it," said the mother, gazing at her young soldier; "he is in the Army. Dear me! Dear me! But take off your hat and sit down, child; here is a whole long letter to read."
There could be but one answer to that. Cherry put herself on a foot cushion behind the table, just where she could have a good peep at the picture whenever she chose, and the reading began. But with the very first sentence Mrs. Kindred laid down the sheet and looked about her with bewildered eyes.
"He doesn't see why I don't come and look after him!" she said. "Why, I thought he had the whole Government to do that."
"And it's the first time Magnus ever asked such a favour of anyone, I am sure," said Rose.
"Oh, but you see," said Cherry from behind her table, "he is homesick, Mrs. Kindred, and wants you; and nothing else will do."
"He must have got over his homesickness long ago," said Violet.
"Just the first sort," said Cherry; "but you see it has come back again. It is four hundred and twenty-three days since he saw his mother." Her voice choked a little.
"Well, you are an almanac, there is no doubt," said Rose, quite failing to trace this exact tally to its true source. "Dear mamma, don't look so! It's just lovely of him to be homesick for a sight of you; he ought to be."