NEWS FOR MRS. BROWN
"OH, mother, I do wish Fanny could have had her holiday next Monday? It would be so nice for us, and for you too, wouldn't it?" And Eliza kissed her mother in a sort of rapture at the anticipation.
The Vicarage party had returned from the seaside the day before, but Eliza could not be spared to come home until this afternoon, and now she could only stay for an hour; but she had come to say she was to have a whole long day with her mother the following Monday, so she wanted her to send for Fanny that they might spend this wonderful holiday together.
Mrs. Brown was not thinking so much of the holiday as of Eliza, and the change that had been wrought in her by this lengthened stay at the seaside.
"You have grown taller and stouter too, my dear, I am quite sure," said her mother, as though she had not said it half a dozen times before, as she looked at the girl. She was rosy and happy, and there was a quickness and alertness about her that told of increased health and strength, such as she had never before enjoyed.
"Don't you think Fanny will be surprised when she sees how I have grown," said Eliza, who was anxious to stand beside her elder sister and thus prove that she was taller than when she went away.
Mrs. Brown was by no means sure what Fanny might think or say; but she was anxious to please Eliza, and so she proposed that she should write a letter the next day, and ask Fanny if she could come out to tea on Monday if her mistress could not spare her for the whole day.
"Your daddy will want to see you, too, when he comes home on Saturday, and so it would be better, if Mrs. Parsons would allow it, for you to have two half-days instead of one whole day on Monday. Do you think you could ask her this, my girl?" said Mrs. Brown.
"I will, when I go back. Nurse likes me to ask her things," added Eliza.
"And you think she will arrange the nursery work so that you can come and see daddy on Saturday or Sunday?"