"Go on up-stairs and dress," she said in a stagy voice when we had come within earshot. "Dress beautifully."
"Why, what on earth—" I started to ask, when I saw the transfigured face of Mammy Lou at the kitchen door. "Some august company to dinner?"
"'Tain't dinner! It's luncheon," she replied grandly, "in courses. And the chil'ren o' Israel lookin' into Canaan and seein' the bunch o' grapes that it took two men to carry ain't saw nothin' compared with what I've saw this day."
"Good gracious! Who is here?" I demanded, much more impressed by her calling the meal "luncheon" than by the weightiness of her Biblical allusion.
"Is there but one man on earth I'd turn the name o' my vittles up-side-down'ards for?" she questioned meaningly, gazing upon me with a beatific glow. "—And he's the grandest that the Lord ever made and put on earth to be pestered with poll-taxes."
"Alfred!" I cried, a sudden burst of understanding and joy sweeping over me; and leaving me very weak-feeling and happy. "Alfred is coming!"
"Not coming, but already here," I heard his voice saying close behind me. His voice! It seemed a thousand years since I heard it last; and I knew in that moment that I could listen to it for a thousand years without ever once growing tired.—But as I turned and faced the big, bearded man coming through the hall doorway, the quick color flew to my face and I felt suddenly very small and insignificant. For it seemed in that instant that Alfred had grown into a giant, a great, bearded giant, over seas—and I have always had such an admiration for giants.
"Well, have I stayed away long enough?" he demanded, as he came on the porch and took my hand. Mother and Jean had fled, but Mammy Lou steadfastly held her ground. "Are you glad to see me, Ann?"
"Yes—yes," I stammered in a mighty confusion.
"How glad? How glad, darling?" His brown eyes were deep and grave.—But the afternoon wore away and the spring twilight had fallen before I answered that question.