"Isn't it splendid Aunt Sarah went to knittin'? Mercy gracious, I hope she won't—won't drop a stitch for Mother to have to stay an' pick up!" Evangeline's laugh trilled out once more.
"Do you suppose you'd dass to cut Elly Precious's hair, Miss Theodosia, while I danced like everything an' made faces? Dutchy, you know, in the back o' his neck—he's straggly now. I'd make awful faces—"
"I wouldn't 'dass,' dear," smiled Miss Theodosia. "I never could cut fast enough and you never could dance hard enough—we'd hurt him."
"Well, she'll look at the front o' him first—never mind. We're goin' to put on that darlin' little ni'gown you made, for a dress—belt it in, you know, with a ribbon off the handle o' the clo'es-basket; Stefana's ironed it out. An' we're goin' to pin on his blue ribbon prize."
John Bradford came that evening to sit on the porch in the soft warmth that autumn had borrowed from summers-to-come, with promissory note to pay it back when lovers were through with it. Miss Theodosia met him with the news.
"Mustn't it be beautiful to be welcomed home like that, dear? If you could have seen Evangeline's little shiny face! And the way Elly Precious laughed—when I tickled him! And, oh, John—Do you hear me call you John? I thought it would be hard!"
"'And, oh, John—'" he prompted, putting it yet further off by a kiss-length.
"Oh, John, I know about Carruthers. You're going to take him away to cure him."
"To try to cure him," John Bradford said gravely.
"You'll do it, dear—you and the Lord! Evangeline and I are trusting.
Hark, she is coming! No one else sounds like that!"