May assented.
"Aunt Ann said we might," she remarked; "but she thought that perhaps you would not want us—that you had enough of us in term time."
The young governess laughed. "I am very pleased to see you," she declared, "very pleased indeed! Are you enjoying the holidays?"
"Oh, yes!" May answered. "Aunt Ann has been taking us for some nice drives, and we have been doing a good bit of gardening."
"Uncle John has given me a piece of ground for my very own," Josephine said, "and May has helped me to put it in order. I heard from father yesterday, Miss Cummings. He is quite safe and well."
"I am so glad, dear! Oh, here's mother! Now I'll go and make the tea."
Mrs. Cummings was pleased to find that her daughter had visitors. She sat down and talked to them about her new work till they were called into the back sitting-room to tea. There she presided at the tea-table, and for once in a way said nothing of a depressing nature. By and by she mentioned the fact that her daughter spent her Sunday afternoons at the hospital. "She sings to the soldiers, you know," she said; "they never tire of listening to her."
"Why, I didn't even know you could sing!" May exclaimed, regarding her governess with so much astonishment that she broke into a merry laugh.
"She has a beautiful voice," remarked Mrs. Cummings, "but she never sang in public till lately. It was Dr. Farrant who persuaded her to sing at the hospital, and now she likes doing it, don't you, Margaret?"
Her daughter assented. "It makes me very happy to see my singing gives pleasure," she said. "Last Sunday I sang 'Fight the good fight,'" she continued, with a smile at Josephine; "I generally choose well-known hymns and ask the soldiers to join in singing them."