This dancing little maid with the sunlit hair and the astounding proposition to adopt into their home two whole families from the slums of New York, was Margaret, her own little Margaret, lost so long ago, and now so miraculously restored to her. As if she could refuse any request, however wild, from Margaret! But this—!
“But, sweetheart, perhaps they—they wouldn’t want to go away forever and leave their home,” she remonstrated at last, feebly.
The child frowned, her finger to her lips.
“Well, anyhow, we can ask them,” she declared, after a minute, her face clearing.
“Suppose we—we make it a visit, first,” suggested Mrs. Kendall, feverishly. “By and by, after I’ve had you all to myself for a little while, you shall ask them to—to visit you.”
“O bully!” agreed Margaret in swift delight. “That will be nicest; won’t it? Then they can see how they like it—but there! they’ll like it all right. They couldn’t help it.”
“And how—how many are there?” questioned Mrs. Kendall, moistening her dry lips, and feeling profoundly thankful for even this respite from the proposed wholesale adoption.
“Why, let’s see.” Margaret held up her fingers and checked off her prospective guests. “There’s Patty, she’s the oldest, and Arabella and Clarabella—they’re the twins an’ they’re my age, you know—that’s the Murphys. And then there’s all the Whalens: Tom, Peter, Mary, Jamie, and—oh, I dunno, six or eight, maybe, with Mis’ Whalen and her husband. But, after all, it don’t make so very much diff’rence just how many there are; does it?” she added, with a happy little skip and jump, “’cause there’s heaps of room here for any ‘mount of ’em. And I never can remember just how many there are without forgettin’ some of ’em. You—you don’t mind if I don’t name ’em all—now?” And she gazed earnestly into her mother’s face.
“No, dear, no,” assured Mrs. Kendall, hurriedly. “You—you have named quite enough. And now we’ll go down to the brook. We haven’t seen half of Five Oaks yet.” And once more she tried to make the joyous present drive from her daughter’s thoughts the grievous past.