Suddenly Ronald sprang forward and spoke.
"Uncle Stephen said I was to tell you he has bought the cottage in the country where Mrs. Cricket lives and he's adding to it and making it most beautiful, and dear Mrs. Cricket is to be housekeeper, and you're all to come down in the summer—all of you—even Giles; and Giles is to stay there as long as he lives. Uncle Stephen is a splendid man," continued Ronald. "It was after him my darling V. C. father took when he became so great and brave and manly, and I love Uncle Stephen better than any one except father. Father hasn't come home yet, and perhaps I won't see him until Giles sees his father. But I'm a very, very happy boy, and it's all because of Uncle Stephen. Now, the rest of you can be happy too in my cottage—Uncle Stephen says it is my cottage—in the beautiful country."
These things came to pass, and even Giles went for a short time to the beautiful country, where the flowers grew in such abundance, and where the birds sang all day long.
"Now you can guess," he said to Sue after they had been there a fortnight or more, "some little bit about the joys of the Land of Pure Delight."
THE END
Transcriber's Notes
- This book makes extensive use of dialect. Original spellings
of words in dialect have been retained.
- Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
- Table of Contents added in this text was not present in original edition.
- One word has been changed from the original to correctly identify the speaker,
Agnes, replying to Connie's question
on page 27:
original: "Wot sort?" asked Connie
replacement: "Wot sort?" asked Agnes.