"I couldn't do nothin' else fo' you chillun," she said, as she offered them. "Ole Becky ain't got much to give but her blessing but I can cook yit, and I done made you a big spice cake apiece, and icened it with icin' an inch thick."
The girls thanked her till her black face beamed, but they looked at each other ruefully when they were in the carriage.
"How I am ever to reach New York with a big frosted cake in my arms is more than I know," said Eugenia. "I'll have to cut it up and pass it around on the train."
"But think of me," groaned Joyce. "I have my cake and Bob, too, and nobody to carry my satchel and umbrella."
The kissing and hand-shaking began, and a cross-fire of good-byes. "Give my love to your mother, Joyce." "Write to me first thing, Eugenia." "Good-bye, Betty." "Good-bye, Lloyd." "Keith and I won't make our adieux now; we'll follow you to the station and see you off on the train." "Good-bye! Good-bye, everybody!"
At last the carriage started on, but was brought to a halt by a shrill call from Rob. They looked back to see him standing on the porch beside the Little Colonel, who was excitedly waving a bunch of flowers which she had been carrying all evening. The light from the red lantern above her threw a rosy glow over the graceful little figure, the soft light hair, and smiling, upturned face. That is the picture they carried away with them.
"Wait!" she cried, a smile dimpling her cheeks, and shining with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "Wait! You've forgotten something! Eugenia's chicken!"
Little Jim Gibbs came running after them with it, and Mr. Forbes lifted it up beside the hamper that held Joyce's puppy.
"Oh, I've sat on my cake and mashed it," moaned Joyce, as she moved over to make a place for the dilapidated old bandbox. "How do you suppose we're ever going to get home with such a mixture of frosted cakes and puppies and chickens, and all the keepsakes that those boys piled on to us at the last moment."
It was amid much laughter that the carriage moved on again. Down the long avenue they went, under that glowing arch, spangled as if with stars, and every friendly old locust held up all its twinkling lanterns to light them on their way. Half-way down the path the band began to play "My Old Kentucky Home," and, leaning far out of the carriage, Eugenia and Joyce looked back once more to wave a loving good-bye to the Little Colonel.