"You'll stay just as long as you wish," rejoined Mrs. Rossmore. "Happily we have just one bedroom left." Then turning to Eudoxia, who was wrestling with the baggage, which formed a miniature Matterhorn on the sidewalk, she gave instructions:
"Eudoxia, you'll take this lady's baggage to the small bedroom adjoining Miss Shirley's. She is going to stop with us for a few days."
Taken completely aback at the news of this new addition, Eudoxia looked at first defiance. She seemed on the point of handing in her resignation there and then. But evidently she thought better of it, for, taking a cue from Mrs. Rossmore, she asked in the sarcastic manner of her mistress:
"Four is it now, M'm? I suppose the Constitootion of the United States allows a family to be as big as one likes to make it. It's hard on us girls, but if it's the law, it's all right, M'm. The more the merrier!" With which broadside, she hung the bags all over herself and staggered off to the house.
Stott explained that the larger pieces and the trunks would come later by express. Mrs. Rossmore took him aside while Mrs. Blake joined Shirley and the judge.
"Did you tell Shirley?" asked Mrs. Rossmore. "How did she take it?"
"She knows everything," answered Stott, "and takes it very sensibly. We shall find her of great moral assistance in our coming fight in the Senate," he added confidently.
Realizing that the judge would like to be left alone with Shirley, Mrs.
Rossmore invited Mrs. Blake to go upstairs and see the room she would
have, while Stott said he would be glad of a washup. When they had gone
Shirley sidled up to her father in her old familiar way.
"I've just been longing to see you, father," she said. She turned to get a good look at him and noticing the lines of care which had deepened during her absence she cried: "Why, how you've changed! I can scarcely believe it's you. Say something. Let me hear the sound of your voice, father."
The judge tried to smile.