"I love you," she answered, the laughter gone from her eyes, and her face very sweet to see, "for yourself—for Bill too, but most of all for yourself. I have wanted this since he first wrote me about you. I have prayed for it every night. You were so exactly the sort of a girl I wanted my boy to marry—"
"But," I said, "I was just a little, bed-ridden, useless creature then—"
"I knew that Bill would cure you," said Mother. "He always gets what he wants—"
"Doesn't he though?" I interrupted, proudly.
"And he wanted you!"
"I love him so," I whispered against the soft lace at her breast.
She put her arms very closely around me. I don't know why I cried.
And then, she talked to me. Just as my own Mother would have done—very gravely and tenderly for a long half-hour. When she left my room, I lay awake a long time, thinking about her and Bill, wondering if I could ever be to him all that she had said I would be. I was happy, a little frightened, and so grateful—so grateful.
CHAPTER XXII
The entire household saw us off on our motor trip. Uncle John beaming, Mrs. Cardigan and the maids waving hands and aprons, Mother smiling at us through a mist. She was coming to Green Hill as soon as we were settled, and help me with my first housekeeping. She had demurred at first when I begged her to: had said that "young people were better off alone." But I, and then Bill, when he found how much I really wanted her and finally Father had overridden all her objections. I didn't tell my menfolk that it was delightful to have someone to whom you could talk "Bill" by the hour, and who never grew tired of listening and encouraging and interrupting with paeans of praise of her own.