A thousand a year could hardly have been so much to Ethel. “Thank you! Oh, this is charming! We could set up a regular school! Cherry Elwood is the very woman! Alan, you have made our fortune! Oh, Margaret, Margaret! I must go and tell Ritchie and Mary! This is the first real step to our church and all!”
“May I do it?” said Alan, turning to Margaret, as Ethel frantically burst out of the room; “perhaps I should have asked leave?”
“I was going to thank you,” said Margaret. “It is the very kindest thing you could have done by dear Ethel! the greatest comfort to us. She will be at peace now, when anything hinders her from going to Cocksmoor.”
“I wonder,” said Alan, musing, “whether we shall ever be able to help her more substantially. I cannot do anything hastily, for you know Maplewood is still in the hands of the executors, and I cannot tell what claims there may be upon me; but by-and-by, when I return, if I find no other pressing duty, might not a church at Cocksmoor be a thankoffering for all I have found here?”
“Oh, Alan, what joy it would be!”
“It is a long way off,” he said sadly; “and perhaps her force of perseverance will have prevailed alone.”
“I suppose I must not tell her, even as a vision.”
“It is too uncertain; I do not know the wants of the Maplewood people, and I must provide for Hector. I would not let these vague dreams interfere with her resolute work; but, Margaret, what a vision it is! I can see you laying the first stone on that fine heathy brow.”
“Oh, your godchild should lay the first stone!”
“She shall, and you shall lead her. And there shall be Ethel’s sharp face full of indescribable things as she marshals her children, and Richard shall be curate, and read in his steady soft tone, and your father shall look sunny with his boys around him, and you—”