"Yes, darling, I knew it would," her mother replied. "I was wondering how I should do as the boys grow older and want more money spent on their education; and now it has been managed for me, you see. We are going to leave where we are living at present, and take a little house all covered with roses and ivy, and you will be with us, my darling!"
"Oh, mother! How wonderful it seems! But, oh, how Aunt Mary and Aunt Pamela will miss me, and how I shall miss them! You don't know how good they have been to me!"
"I think I do, my dear."
"I have so many friends here—"
"I have found that out," her mother interposed, smiling, "for I have seen several of them myself, and thanked them for their kindness to my little girl. The first I saw was a golden-haired, blue-eyed fairy, who has made me promise to let you see her before anyone else."
"Muriel!" Marigold cried, laughing.
"Yes. Next, there was Barker's mother, who said you had been very kind to her."
"I don't think I was ever very kind to her," Marigold said. "There wasn't much I could do for her, except read a chapter from the Bible to her now and then."
"I think from what she said she valued that above all. She sent her love and her blessing to you. Then there was that lame girl you wrote so much about, and several of your school friends, including Grace Long, whom I seemed to know quite well from your description of her. And last, but not least, there was Farmer Jo!"
"Oh, when did you see him, mother?" Marigold asked eagerly.