"You like it, I suppose?" said Nellie, smiling.
"Very much indeed. I love dear Mrs. Arundel so much; and so I do 'Aunt Ruth,' as she allows me to call her."
"Do you often go home?"
"Two or three times a week I run down and say, 'How do you do?' to mamma; but my sister Maude laughingly tells me to keep to my own ground!"
"You have plenty of sisters and brothers, haven't you?"
"Yes," answered Hope; "but we get along very well. Mamma is very good to us, and tries to forget her own sorrows to cheer us."
"That is so like mothers," said Nellie.
"Some mothers," answered Hope. "But here is Maude coming across the lawn to welcome you; so you will see some of us to-night, and some to-morrow, and next week we expect our brother Wilmot down from London to spend his holiday; then you will have seen all but one."
