Her father’s voice calling from the house roused her at last from her revery, and they were off again for home. He was thinking too busily of his summer plans to talk, and she, wrapped in her own thoughts, was glad of the silence. But she broke it suddenly as they drew near the substantial brick house which belonged to the Elwells, almost at the end of the ride.
“Suppose you let me out here, father,” she said. “I haven’t been in to see Mrs. Elwell for weeks, and I’ve been thinking all the afternoon how good she was to us last summer at the threshing. I want to go in and thank her for it over again. I’ll come home by myself in a little while.”
She hesitated a moment whether or not to go in by the back way in the old familiar fashion, then, for some reason, walked to the front door and rang the bell. The mistress herself opened it, her hands a little floury, and a clean gingham apron over her afternoon dress.
“Well, upon my word!” she exclaimed, starting at the sight of her caller. “If we weren’t talking about you, Esther Northmore, this blessed minute! Come in, come in. Who do you think is here?”
She had not time to guess. She had not time to speak the name which rose with wondering incredulity to her lips when the owner of it himself came hurrying through the hall to meet her.
“You!” she cried, fairly springing to meet Morton Elwell. “Why, how does this happen?”
“It’s vacation for me too,” he said, beaming at her in the most radiant manner. “And—yes, I’ll own it. It was a genuine fit of homesickness that brought me. I’ve been struggling with it all winter, but it was simply too much for me when there actually came a halt in the school work. I had to come. There was no other way.”
“Think of it,” said Mrs. Elwell, who looked so happy that there was almost a halo round her head; “think of his taking that journey and coming home for a week’s vacation, when he could hardly afford a day off for us all last summer.”
“It does seem as if I’d grown to be something of a spendthrift, doesn’t it?” said the young man. “But you can’t hold yourself down all the time. You have to break loose now and then. And let me tell you,”—they had reached the sitting room now, and he was sitting between them, looking from one to the other like a happy child—“let me tell you that I’ve taken the Lisper scholarship, and that means my tuition all the rest of my course. Don’t you think I could afford to give myself a glimpse of home when I wanted it so desperately?”
They cried, “Oh!” in concert, Mrs. Elwell, whose ideas were a little vague in regard to scholarships, prolonging hers as if to cover the comments she ought to make, and Esther adding, with the color sweeping over her face, “Why, that is splendid, perfectly splendid! I can’t tell you how glad I am.”