"Mother, am—am I the—same girl?" She put the question slowly.
"No, Jerry—and that's what I've been fighting out here—all by myself. For I realize that it was only selfishness made me dread finding a change! A mother's selfishness! That you should grow and go on and forward, even though you leave me behind, darling, I know must be my dearest wish. But oh, my dear, I understand how the poor mother robin feels just before she shoves her babies out of the nest! For don't you think she hates an empty nest as much as any human mother? Do you remember the little story I used to tell you when you were small enough to cuddle your whole self on my lap? How yours and my love was a beautiful, sunny garden where you dwelt and that the garden had a very high wall around it?"
"I love that story, mamsey. I told it once to Mrs. Westley and she loved it, too. And you used to say that there was a gate in the wall with a latch but the latch was quite high so that when I was little I could not find it!"
"And then you grew bigger and your fingers could reach the latch—you wanted to open it to go out and see what was outside. I had made the little garden as beautiful as I knew how and it was very sunny and the wall was so high that it shut out all trouble—but you wanted so much to open the gate that I knew I must let you!"
"And then I went away to Highacres——" put in Jerry, loving the story as much as ever.
"And I was alone in the garden our love had built, but I was not lonely—I will not be lonely, for—wherever you go—you are my girl and I love you and you love me! Nothing can change that. And I shall leave the gate open—it will always be open!" She said it slowly; her story was finished.
Jerry's face was transfigured. "You mean—you mean"—she spoke softly—"that—if I want to go—back to Highacres—you'll let me? I can go to college? Oh, mamsey, you're wonderful! Mothers are the grandest things. And the gate will always be open so's I can always come back? And you won't be lonely for I'll always love you most in the world of anybody or anything. And when I'm very grown-up and can't go to school any more we'll travel, won't we? You and me and Little-Dad—won't we, mamsey?"
"Yes, dear." But the mother's eyes smiled in the darkness—she was thinking of the empty nest.
Jerry laid her cheek against her mother's arm. She drew a long breath.
"The world's so wonderful, isn't it? It's dreadful to think of anyone in it, like my—father, who's set his heart so hard on just one thing that he can't see all the other things he might do! I shall never be like that! And it's dreadful"—she frowned sorrowfully out over the starlit valley—"to think of girls who haven't mothers and who can't go to school. Why, I'm the very, very richest girl in the world!" Then she blushed. "I don't mean that money, mamsey, I mean having you and—Sunnyside and Kettle and just knowing about—our garden!"