“Thank you.” Dropping a hasty kiss on her mother’s cheek, Grace was off.
Mrs. Harlowe watched her go down the walk, holding a hand of each little girl, with wistful eyes. Grace had not been at home three days before her mother divined that all was not well with her beloved daughter. Yet to ask questions was not her way. Whatever Grace’s cross might be, she knew that, in time, Grace would confide in her.
On the way to the Omnibus House Grace was as gay and buoyant as her two little friends. It was not until they had reached there and Anna May and Elizabeth had run off to the nearest tree to watch a pair of birds which were building a nest and keeping up a great chirping meanwhile, that a frightful feeling of loneliness swept over Grace. She sat down on the worn stone steps sadly thinking of Tom Gray and the good times the Eight Originals had had at this favorite haunt.
But why did the memory of Tom Gray continue to haunt her? Grace gave her shoulders an impatient twitch. How foolish she was to allow herself to grow retrospective over Tom. She had deliberately sent him away because she did not, nor never could, love him. Still she wished that the memory of him would not intrude upon her thoughts so constantly. “It’s only because he’s associated with the good times the Eight Originals have had,” she tried to tell herself, but deep in her heart was born a strange fear that she fought against naming or recognizing.
After having watched the noisy, but successful, builders to their hearts’ content, the children ran over to where Grace sat and challenged her to a game of tag. But she was in no mood for play, and suggested they had better be starting home. She felt that she could not endure for another instant this house of memories. She tried to assume the joyous air with which she had started out, but even the two little girls were not slow to perceive that their dear Miss Harlowe didn’t look as happy as when they had begun their walk.
“I think we’d better go and see her to-morrow morning and take her a present,” decided Anna May, after Grace had left them at their own gate. “She laughed like everything when we started on our walk, but she looked pretty sad when we were coming back and didn’t say hardly a thing. I’m going to give her my bottle of grape juice that Mother made specially for me.”
“I guess I’ll give her that pen wiper I made. It’s ever so pretty.” Elizabeth was not to be outdone in generosity.
“We’ll take Snowball’s new white puppy to show her,” planned Anna May. “She hasn’t seen it yet. And a real French poodle puppy is too cute for anything.”
“And we’ll sing that new verse we learned in school for her,” added Elizabeth.
True to their word, the next morning the two little girls marched up to the Harlowes’ front door laden with their gifts. Anna May bore with proud carefulness the cherished bottle of grape juice while Elizabeth cuddled a fat white ball in her arms, the pen wiper lying like a little blanket on the puppy’s back.