A lingering echo went singing through her heart. "It is all yours, Moira Lynch! It is all yours!" The beauty around her—the promise of spring, the green of orchard and meadow and distant hill, the rest, the contentment—the happiness, and oh, most precious, the fulfilment.
There was never a day now, in Mother Moira's life, so busy that she could not snatch a moment to go over, in reverent appreciation, the blessings that were hers. And no longer were her dreams—for nothing could change the dreaming heart of the little woman—for herself or even for her big Danny; they were for her fine lad, a man now, and Beryl, working so earnestly for her ambition, and little Robin, who would always be little Robin, and the imp of a Susy, ruddy cheeked and happy-hearted.
How long, long ago seemed those days when, a slip of a girl, she had dreamed on that other hillside of a future that would be hers; how dazzling had been the pictures she had fancied; how much she had dared to ask. In her youthful bravado she had laughed at Destiny and had made so bold as to declare Destiny might even then be weaving a bit of gold into the drab fabric of her life.
(Faith, was not little Robin her bit of gold? Had not the wonderful change begun in their lives after little Robin came to the Manor?)
Five years had passed, since she and her big Danny had moved from the village to the little farm that was "just around the corner." During them she and big Danny had been alone a great deal of the time, excepting for little Susy; for Dale and Beryl, after settling them snugly in the old-fashioned farmhouse, (painted as white as white with a new barn for the gentle-eyed cow, and a pen for the pigs, and a trim little run-way for the chickens) had gone away, Dale to an engineering college, Beryl to live with Miss Allendyce and take her precious violin lessons, and lessons in languages and science. But Mother Moira was never lonesome, for mere miles could not separate a heart like hers from those she loved!
There had been significant changes in the village for her to watch develop. The old Mill cottages had been torn down and across the river had been built a cluster of white houses, each with its own yard "going right around it," and trees and a bit of garden. There was a new school house, too, and a new corps of teachers, and a hospital and a library. Robin and her aunt had opened this only a month before.
And the House of Laughter had been enlarged to meet the increasing demands upon it; there were rooms for the girls' clubs and the boys' clubs, and a billiard room and a bowling alley, and an athletic field with a basketball court and a baseball diamond.
(Sir Galahad in his scarlet coat still hung over the mantel which Williams had built. Robin would not let anyone change that.)
Mrs. Riley lived in the upper floor of the House of Laughter and took care of it.
The Manor car, with Madame Forsyth, passed often now through the streets of the village and from it Madame nodded pleasantly to this person and that, stopping sometimes to ask one Mill mother concerning her sick child, another of her husband—and another whether she had finished the knit bed-spread upon which Madame had found her working one afternoon when she had called. Madame had herself regularly visited the new Mill houses during the process of construction and took delight in dropping in upon the newly organized school while classes were in session.