“No, you won’t, for I’ll hold on to you!”
“Oh, come in, dear, and help me—advise me.”
She drew Rosamond’s hand through her arm.
“I shall love to help in anything that makes you so happy. And to-morrow, early, you shall have fresh flowers and fruit—and everything that Villa Rose can supply. If only Amanda and Jemima were there to cook things! But they went to Trenton for the day,” she added, not wishing to cloud Mrs. Lee’s joy by a recital of His Friggets’ sudden sorrow. “But there! I can cook! I’ll bake a cake. It will be fun to do it.”
“Oh, my dear! will you? Oh, think of that!” Mrs. Lee fluttered in ahead of her. “I must decide which room to give him.”
“You haven’t any room. He’ll have to sleep in the well!”
“Ah! I have it! yes! I’ve just thought that I can use the little room as a dining-room and give Jack the dining-room because of the two sun windows looking down toward the river. He will want a sunny room to work in.”
She led the way into the dining-room where light and colour reigned even in the woodwork and draperies. Purple, pink, and blue morning-glories, burdened with bees, peered in at the broad, low windows.
“To work?” Rosamond repeated interrogatively.
“Yes—I haven’t told even you yet. It has been such a secret! It is the professor’s manuscripts. I have arranged them. Oh! it took months to sort them. Look.”