The eyes of the children gleamed with delight at sight of the unexpected treat, and they speedily emptied the dishes which their mother then carried home to wash, while the children took back the borrowed chairs.
By this time Nan began to feel very weary, and she threw herself down on the bed with the baby, but she kept in her hand some little scrips of the pretty lawns and ginghams that she had found on the floor. It seemed hardly possible to her that she could be going to have such dresses. Why--one of the scrips was exactly like a waist that one of those girls had worn. Nan gazed at it with a smile on her lips, a smile that lingered there until it was chased away by the remembrance of Theo's loneliness when she and Little Brother should be far away.
XIII. Nan's Departure
Theo was feeling that he needed sympathy about that time, for it seemed to him as if every one that he cared for was to be taken away from him.
Mr. Scott had invited the boy to go with him for a row on the river and then to go home with him to supper. The river was beautiful in the afternoon sunlight, and Theodore enjoyed the row and the friendly talk with his teacher, but he felt a little shy with Mrs. Rawson and was not sorry to find her absent from the supper-table.
When the meal was over Mr. Scott took the boy up to his own room to see some of his curiosities. Theo's quick eyes took silent note of everything, and he mentally decided that some day he would have just such a room as that. He was thinking thus, when Mr. Scott said,
"Theo, you haven't asked me what Dr. Reed thinks about Nan and her little brother."
"She's better to-day--Nan is," exclaimed the boy, quickly.
"Yes, I suppose the medicine has toned her up a little, but the doctor says that she must have a long rest. She has been working too hard."