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Miss Tremont returned on Wednesday morning. She stepped off the train with a bag under one arm, a bundle under the other, and both arms full of flowers.
“Oh, you darling, you darling!” she cried as she fell upon Patience. “How it does my heart good to see you! These are for you. Hal picked them, and sent her love. Aren’t they sweet?”
“Lovely,” said Patience, crushing the flowers as she hugged and kissed Miss Tremont. “Here, give me the bag.”
Miss Tremont would go to Temperance Hall first, then to call upon Miss Beale, but was finally guided to her home. The trunk had preceded them. Patience unpacked the despised gowns, while listening to a passionate dissertation upon the heavy trial they had been to their owner.
“I think you had a good time all the same,” she said. “You look as if you’d had, at any rate. You’ve not looked so well since I came. That sort of thing agrees with you better than tramping over Hog Heights—”
“It does not!” cried Miss Tremont. “And I am so glad to get back to my work and my little girl.”
“And the Lord,” supplemented Patience.
“Oh, He was with me even there. Only He didn’t feel so near.” She sighed reminiscently. “But I’ve brought pictures of the children to show you. Let us go down to the parlour where it’s cooler, and then we’ll stand them in a row on the mantel. They’re the first pictures I’ve had of them in years.” She caught a package from the tray of her trunk, in her usual abrupt fashion, and hurried downstairs, Patience at her heels.
Miss Tremont seated herself in her favourite upright chair, put on her spectacles, and opened the package. “This is Hal,” she said, handing one of the photographs to Patience. “I must show you her first, for she’s my pet.”