"You will find us strict and particular in many ways; but it is our desire that you should be happy with us. Your father had a very happy boyhood, he always said, and I believe he spoke truly. You cannot remember him, I suppose?"
"I do just remember him, but that is all."
"He was a noble boy! Mary and I were proud of him!"
"We were indeed!" Miss Holcroft agreed.
"Oh, please, Aunt Pamela," Marigold said hastily, "mother told me to ask you if you would be good enough to let her know I had arrived safely."
"I should have done so if you had not mentioned it," Miss Pamela answered. "Have you any message to send?"
"Please give her my love—nothing else, thank you."
The letter was written and sent to post. Marigold was allowed to remain idle that first evening, and she sat watching Miss Pamela busily employed with woolwork, with a sense of unreality upon her. Miss Holcroft took some needlework too, but she continually put it down to scan her little niece's features afresh, and smile upon her with such evident goodwill that Marigold's heart could not but feel less lonely. Yet, when she lay down in her pretty chintz-covered bed that night, and thought longingly of her mother and brothers, the tears would come, and painful sobs shook her slender form.
"Oh, to be back with her dear ones once more! To feel the clasp of loving arms, the touch of loving lips! Were they thinking of her at this moment, saying: I wonder how Marigold is getting on, and if she misses us much!"
She felt she had never known how much she loved them till now. Oh, it was hard that she should have had to leave them; it seemed a little unkind her mother should have insisted on sending her away. But no, that was a wrong thought. Mother knew what was best.