At the very last Evelyn gave me a message to deliver.
"Rhoda," she said, earnestly, "tell grandmother that there is good news. What she was wishing for is really going to happen!"
She hugged me up closer to her.
"Oh, what a Christmas this will be!" she cried. "We are all going to get what we want, all of us, even Rhoda!"
Afterwards she changed. When I went out of the door she drew me back and looked at me anxiously, almost coldly.
"Rhoda, don't tell grandmother anything," she said. "It might be a mistake. I wouldn't have her disappointed for the world!"
I did not want grandmother to be disappointed, but still when I went back into our house and saw her sitting by the window, I felt that I should like to tell her some good news. Just that once. She looked so frail and old, and I had never noticed before how white her hair was.
My mother was very tender with grandmother. Every morning she would send her three children, the twins and me, to kiss her, and when my father came home at night she would send him to lean on the back of the big chair, and look down at the closed Bible. Grandmother never took the picture out when my father was there. She never even listened to the people passing by outside. She would talk to him about other things in which neither of them took much interest, until he would go away, half sadly, half angrily.
"She is the most absurd woman who ever lived," he told my mother. "Here is Frank winning laurels by the dozen, and, on account of her stupid prejudice, she won't listen to his name. Does she expect to keep this thing up forever?"