‘And there is Thomas in the doorway. He is watching for me, I do believe.’
Thomas was the hall boy, and a good friend to Patty, too.
‘And there is Mother in the window. Mother! Mother!’
Patty pounded on the window of the cab and called and waved. The moment the cab stopped, without waiting for Father’s umbrella, across the sidewalk went Patty with a skip and a jump, up the steps, and into the hall where she flung both arms about Mother’s neck.
‘I knew you would come down to meet me,’ said Patty, giving Mother the tightest squeeze she could and smiling broadly at Thomas over Mother’s shoulder. ‘I have come home, Thomas. I am home.’
And so she was.
Oh, how much there was to tell and to see! Patty’s tongue flew, and her bright eyes glanced hither and thither, and her quick little feet sped up and down the hall and in and out of the rooms she remembered so well.
And in her own room who should be waiting for Patty, sitting in the middle of her very own little bed, but Isabel, home from her trip to the South and as good as new, only perhaps a little prettier than before, Patty thought.
‘Now, Isabel,’ said Patty that night in bed, as Isabel lay where Patty could put out her hand and touch her if she felt at all lonely before she fell asleep, ‘now, Isabel, I must tell you all about your new sister, Polly Perkins. I hope you are going to be good friends. She will be home perhaps to-morrow, perhaps the day after, and I hope you will love her very much indeed.’
Isabel promised that she would. And all the next day—another rainy day, too—she and Patty watched for Polly Perkins, though both Mother and Grandmother said it was far too soon to expect Polly home. All the next day and the next and the next Patty and Isabel watched for Polly, but Polly did not come.