"Fred!" exclaimed Bess, shocked at the idea. "What could ever suggest such a thing to you?"
"Nothing, only I know mother was. She never took me anywhere with her, and I heard her say so one day, when she didn't know I was there; and so I just thought I'd ask you about it. I'm glad you don't mind. And I'll tell Ted to-morrow night that I'm sorry. Good-night."
As was her usual habit, Bess went up-stairs a little later to say good-night, and see that the boy needed nothing. When she came downstairs again, tempted by the warm June moonlight, she went out to the piazza and dropped into a hammock. The tall trees on the lawn threw dark patches of shade on the grass, that came and went as the evening wind moved the leafy branches, or vanished in one dull, uniform shadow as the full moon went behind some fleecy bit of cloud. A distant whippoorwill, singing his sad night song, was the only sound that broke the stillness. Bess swung there with her hands clasped above her head, and one toe resting on the floor, enjoying the quiet beauty of the night.
"How lovely it all is!" she thought. "And Fred has none of it to enjoy. Poor child! And with such a mother!"
The next evening was Saturday, and with it came the boys, all in high glee, for their school had closed the day before, and the endless vista of the long vacation and its prospective good times was stretching before their eyes, and even the trial of a rainy Saturday was not as hard to bear, when thirteen weeks of continual Saturday lay in the near future.
"Phil and I had a fine scheme coming up here," said Bert, as he took off his dripping rubber coat; "Phil had a bag of peanuts, and we just stuck the umbrella handle down my neck to hold it, so we could both eat, all the way."
"Yes," put in Phil, as he furtively swallowed the last of his feast. "But I didn't get much of the umbrella, just the same, and my legs got awfully wet, for they hung out behind it, too. Any boys here yet?"
"Nobody but me," said Fred, strolling into the hall. "There come Rob and Sam," he added, as a step was heard.
"I don't see how you tell so quick," said Phil admiringly. "They all sound just alike to me; don't they to you, Bert?"
"Yes, they do to me," said Bert gently, as he passed his arm through Fred's and started for the library; "but if I just had to listen all the time, I think I should know you all apart. But I don't suppose I care to try; do I, Fred?"