“O, yes, real well,” she answered.
“Did it hurt you to go in yesterday, do you think?”
“No, not a mite,” she responded promptly.
“Then why in the name of common sense don’t you want to go in to-day? Has Luella been trying to talk some of her nonsense?”
“Well, Luella thinks my figger looks so bad in a bathing-suit. She says of course you want to be polite to me, but you don’t really know how folks will laugh at me, and make her ashamed of belonging to me.”
“Well, I like that!” said Donald. “You just tell Miss Luella we’re not running this vacation for her sole benefit. Now, Aunt Crete, you’re going in bathing, or else I won’t go, and you wouldn’t like to deprive me of that pleasure, would you? Well, I thought not. Now come on down to breakfast, and we’ll have the best day yet. Don’t you let Luella worry you. And, by the way, Aunt Crete, I’m thinking of taking a run up to Cape Cod, and perhaps getting a glimpse of the coast of Maine before I get through. How would you like to go with me?”
“Oh!” gasped Aunt Crete in a daze of delight. “Could I?” Then, mindful of Luella’s mocking words the night before: “But I musn’t be an expense to you. I’d just be a burden. You know I haven’t a cent of my own in the world; so I couldn’t pay my way, and you’ve done a great deal more than I ought to have let you do.”
“Now, Aunt Crete, once for all you must get that idea out of your head. You could never be a burden to me. I want you for a companion. If my mother were here, shouldn’t I just love to take her on a journey with me, and spend every cent I had to make her happy? Well, I haven’t mother here; but you are the nearest to mother I can find, and I somehow feel she’d like me to have you in her place. Will you come? Or is it asking too much to ask you to leave Aunt Carrie and Cousin Luella? They’ve got each other, and they never really needed you as I do. I’ve got plenty of money for us to do as we please, and I mean it with all my heart. Will you come and stay with me? I may have to take a flying trip to Europe before the summer’s over; and, if I do, it would be dreadfully lonesome to go alone. I think you’d like a trip on the ocean, wouldn’t you? and a peep at London, and perhaps Paris and Vienna and old Rome for a few days? And in the fall I’m booked for work in my old university. It’s only an assistant professorship yet, but it means a big thing for a young fellow like me, and I want you to come with me and make a cozy little home for me between whiles and a place where I can bring my friends when they get homesick.”
He paused and looked down for an answer, and was almost startled by the glory of joy in Aunt Crete’s face.