“I have put these selections together, thinking that to the original ‘Travellers’ it may be a joy to have a memorial of happy days full of much innocent pleasure and wholesome intercourse. Let me here express my warm gratitude for all the refreshments afforded by the friendships it commemorates, and which makes the name most truly appropriate. As a stranger and pilgrim whose journey may be near its close, let me be allowed thus to weave a parting garland of some of the brightest flowers that have bloomed on the wayside, and in dedicating the collection to my dear companions and fellow-wanderers in the scenes it records, let me wish that on the highway of life that stretches before them, they may meet with many a ‘Traveller’s Joy,’ as true as they have been to the Editor.
“F——”
Babie, with eyes full of tears, was looking up to speak, when the carriage, having completed the round, again stopped, and Mrs. Evelyn came down, escorted by Cecil, with hearty thanks.
“Essie’s nice clean, fresh, country notions were scouted by the London housemaid,” she said. “I am happy to say the child held her own, though the woman presumed outrageously on her gentleness, and neither of the two had any notion how to get rid of her.”
“Arcadia had no housemaids,” said Fordham, rallying.
“If not, it must have been nearly as bad as Jock’s twelfth century,” said Babie, in the same tone.
“Ah! I see!” said Mrs. Evelyn, laughing.
And there was a little playful banter as to which had been the impatient one to open the parcel, each pretending to persuade her that it had been a mere yielding to the other. Thus they came to Collingwood Street, where Babie would have taken out her book.
“No, no, wait,” said Fordham. “I want to write your name in it first. I’ll send it this evening. Ali and Armie are coming to me while these good people are at their Duchess’s.”
“Our last gaiety, I am thankful to say,” returned his mother, as Barbara felt a fervent squeeze of the hand, which she knew was meant to remind her of the deeper tone of their conversation.