“I should think it would seem strange just at first,” ventured Margaret, amazed at her own temerity and looking 48 up at her guardian shyly. “I mean not being Miss Howland any longer.”
The girls laughed and Margaret flushed confusedly.
“You shouldn’t say such things, Margaret; it ill befits your age,” said Jessie patronizingly.
There followed another burst of laughter, out of which Margaret’s voice rose defiantly. “I don’t care,” she cried. “It seemed mighty funny to me to call our guardian Mrs. Wescott, and if it seemed strange to me, what must it have seemed to her? I was almost afraid——” her voice trailed off into silence, and Mrs. Wescott prompted, gently, “Afraid of what, dear?”
“Oh, just afraid that you might be—different.”
It was the vague, half-formed fear that all the girls had felt, yet none had dared express, and the silence that followed was pregnant with meaning.
“Different, Margaret?” their guardian’s voice was low and tremulous. “Never! Happier, oh, so very much happier, girls; but never changed in my love for you except as it grows stronger. Do I seem different?” she asked, turning swimming eyes upon them.
“Oh, no—except that you are twice as dear,” cried Lucile, and the cry found an echo in each girl’s heart.
“I’m so happy I’m afraid I’m going to have hysterics or something,” cried Jessie, dabbing her eyes with a square inch or so of handkerchief. “I want to laugh and cry, and you can’t do both at once.”
The girls laughed shakily and Mrs. Wescott said, with a gay little laugh, “Here, this will never do. Now that that question is settled forever and ever, I want to hear what you girls have been doing all this time, and what you expect to do this summer. Come, who’s first?”