"Yes, indeed!" said Mrs. Grahame, heartily. "I am sure that was a real treat, darling. And Bubble—you say he is grown such a fine lad!"
"Bubble is enchanting! not handsome—well, but you need not laugh, Mammina, for he is very good looking, and certainly has an air of distinction. He holds his head so well; and he walks well, and, altogether—oh, I am proud of Bubble. And Rose says that Doctor Flower is sure the boy has a career before him; he never had so apt a pupil. And he speaks such beautiful English, Rose says."
"Rose says!" repeated Mrs. Grahame. "I thought you had a good little talk with the boy himself."
"Oh, so I had, but he would not talk anything but the broadest Yankee. He insisted that he was precisely the same freckled boy that he was when I first saw him; and he carried on in the most absurd way. He was almost like Gerald; dear Gerald! I didn't see any of the Merryweathers, Mamma; so there was something lacking, after all."
"It would be a weary world if there were not," said her mother. "But speaking of the Merryweathers—have you noticed, Hilda dear, whether the night is clear?"
"Whether the night is clear, Mammina? No, I did not look. What do you mean, darling? Shall I go to the door—"
"No; not to the door," said Mrs. Grahame. "Go to the window, child; the west window, that looks across the hedge. Tell me if the stars are out."
Wondering greatly at this sudden solicitude about the weather, Hildegarde crossed the room and drew the curtain.
"Clear as a bell," she said. "Stars all out, and wind,—oh, oh, Mammina! Why, there are lights in the windows of Pumpkin House! Mamma, they have come!"
She turned upon her mother with eyes alight with happy inquiry.