"I hope so, dear. Yes, it is very nice."
"She was looking better already, mother; brighter, you know."
"Mummy, is asking a perfectly necessary question 'interrupting'?'"
"Perhaps not, dear, if there is only one," smiled Mrs. Shaw.
"Mayn't I, please, go with Paul and Hilary when they go to call on that girl?"
"On whom, Patience?"
Patience wriggled impatiently; grown people were certainly very trying at times. "On Paul's and Hilary's new friend, mummy."
"Not the first time, Patience; possibly later—"
Patience shrugged. "By and by," she observed, addressing the room at large, "when Paul and Hilary are married, I'll be Miss Shaw! And then—" the thought appeared to give her considerable comfort.
"And maybe, Towser," she confided later, as the two sat together on the side porch, "maybe—some day—you and I'll go to call on them on our own account. I'm not sure it isn't your duty to call on those dogs—you lived here first, and I can't see why it isn't mine—to call on that girl. Father says, we should always hasten to welcome the stranger; and they sound dreadfully interesting."