"No, not that. I know you never would bear to do nothing; but you should teach me music and drawing as you do now, and we might have Rose with us too—it would be so nice."
"And it is so nice to teach you music and drawing, and to have Rose with me, and to live in a comfortable little room. You see, I have it all."
"Ah, yes!" said Amy; "but then there are some things, now—tiresome, dreadful things—which you never should have to bear if you lived with me. And I would love you so dearly, so very dearly."
Miss Morton drew Amy more closely to her, and gave her one of those kisses which she had lately begun to value far more than words.
"I should grieve very much," she said, "if I did not think you loved me dearly now—there are but few left in the world who do."
"But you have mamma to love you besides," said Amy; "and Mrs Walton, I am sure she must be fond of you; and sometimes, perhaps, she will ask you to stay at the rectory; and mamma and I can go there too, and then there will be no one to interrupt. I am so glad Miss Cunningham does not know Mrs Walton."
"Perhaps, so am I too," said Emily, smiling; "but we must try and be agreeable to her on Saturday."
"Ah! Saturday," repeated Amy, sighing; "all my pleasure will be over then—real, quiet pleasure, I mean. On Monday the other people come, and Dora says, that as I am her cousin, I shall be expected to help to entertain them. But I never did entertain any one in my life; I don't quite know what it means. I suppose it is talking and showing pictures; but one can't do that all day."
"Your cousin Frank comes to-night," replied Emily, laughing; "and he is so merry, that he will take half the trouble off your hands."
Amy's face brightened. "I forgot that; but then they are girls—boys cannot entertain girls. I do think, if I had but a fairy's wand, I should strike them all as they came into the house, and change them into boys, and set them to play at football and leapfrog, and all the trouble would be over. But I am not Dora; and if they are dull they will not complain of me."