"Take care of her, Andy," was what, in almost the same words, they all more or less brokenly said to him at last; and to each and all he answered, in that way of his they loved and trusted, "I will."
From Andrew Churchill it was assurance enough.
CHAPTER II
"There! Doesn't that look like a 'Welcome Home'?"
Celia stood in the doorway and surveyed her handiwork. Mrs. Birch, from an opposite threshold, nodded, smiling.
"It does, indeed. You have given the whole house a festival air which will captivate Andy's heart the instant he sets eyes on it. As for our little Charlotte--"
She paused, as if it were not easy to put into words that which she knew Charlotte would think. But Celia went on gleefully:
"Charlotte will be so crazy with delight at getting home she will see everything through a blur at first. But when we have all gone away and left them here, then Charlotte will see. And she'll be glad to find traces of her devoted family wherever she looks."
She pointed from the little work-box on the table by the window, just equipped and placed there by her mother's hand, to the book-shelf made and put up in the corner by Jeff. She waved her hand at a great wicker armchair with deep pockets at the sides for newspapers and magazines, which had been Mr. Birch's contribution to the living-room, and at the fine calendar which Just had hung by the desk. Her own offerings were the dressing-table furnishings up-stairs.