“At last, my dear, you are at home,” said Mrs. May as she surveyed the room, once more in order. “And you must rest an hour before supper.”
“I really don’t feel tired, Aunt Parthenia,” Dorothea demurred; “I never take naps.”
“Neither do I!” Harriot put in with a note of triumph; decidedly this new cousin was to her taste.
“And I always do,” Miss Imogene remarked placidly. “It keeps the roses blooming longer in our cheeks.”
With a light laugh she went off with April, followed by the reluctant Harriot, who seemed very averse to leaving Dorothea even for a moment.
“I shall wait and see that you obey me,” Mrs. May said as she closed the door behind her daughter. “Come, my dear, put on a wrapper and rest, even if you don’t sleep.”
Dorothea set about doing as Mrs. May suggested, glad to have the elder lady to herself for a little. It was more than just a visit to her relatives in Georgia that had brought her there, though the chief reason lay very deep in her heart.
“Aunt Parthenia,” she began as she sat in a comfortable chair beside her aunt, “you are glad to see me, aren’t you?”
Mrs. May guessed what was in her mind, indeed she had stayed behind the others on purpose to have a little talk with her niece. So she reached out and took the girl’s hand gently in her own.
“My dearest child,” she said warmly, “I am more than glad to see you. Your mother was my only sister, and I can’t tell you how I have longed to know the little girl she left behind. Do you remember her at all, honey?”