“Don’t you want to go back to the mountains?” Mrs. Duer asked gently.
“N-no.”
“Well, we have plenty of time, dear. We can go where you like. We need not hurry home.”
But somehow this comforting assurance seemed only to start Priscilla’s tears afresh.
“I don’t want plenty of time,” she wailed dolefully.
A sudden idea popped into Hannah’s head. She gave Mrs. Duer a quick glance and then said quietly: “I shouldn’t want to hurry you on any account, madam, but perhaps if we were to go home for a day or two Priscilla might make up her mind better where she’d like to be. If we didn’t stay out the rest of our time here, for instance, we could go right home to-morrow.”
But Priscilla had started up, her eyes aglow. Hannah pretended not to notice her and continued unconcernedly: “We could telegraph to Theresa to-night that we were coming to-morrow and, if we started bright and early we could be home by evening, sure.”
Priscilla clapped her hands. “And s’posing Lawrence and Richard would meet us at the station!” she cried, half-laughing, half-crying, her voice quivering with excitement: “and s’posing Oh-my was there too—and—and s’posing—s’posing Polly was driving him—and—and——”
“I shouldn’t wonder one mite if I were to ask the telegraph operator down in the office to send that telegram to Theresa,” declared Hannah, “that he’d send it for me in a minute.”