Lobelia smiled, and leaned back on the cushions with closed eyes and a look of absolute content. "You are so funny, Peggy!" she murmured. "She is funny, too. I like people who are funny. Good-bye, and thank everybody. Everybody is so kind!"
The carriage drove away, and the last thing the girls saw was Grace's face, looking down at her charge; grave as ever,—Grace rarely smiled, and they hardly knew the sound of her laugh,—but bright as Lobelia's own with love and purpose and gladness. So they passed out of sight.
And since then had come letters every week, telling of the child's progress; one to Miss Russell always, and one to the Owls or to Peggy. It was one of these that Gertrude took from her pocket now and opened, as they sat together on Peggy's divan.
"You see, it is dated three days ago; probably been carried in a pocket, from the look of it."
"Dear Snowy, also Fluffy:—Tu whit! She has been gaining so fast this week, we shall soon forget she has been ill at all. She can eat anything she likes, and she likes a great deal. Miss P. keeps exclaiming at her appetite. Apparently the child never ate anything before she went to school. The rule of the house is, or was, one shredded wheat Abomination for breakfast, one chop for dinner, one smoked herring for supper. All this served on huge and hideous silver dishes. This order is changed. Miss Parkins almost fainted when I ordered the first meal. She weeps every day over the butcher's book, but the child fattens apace, and all is well. I had to frighten her—the aunt—a little, though, before things went smoothly.
"Yesterday we explored the house, the Babe and I. The amazing thing is that she lived at all after she got her eyes open. Apparently every article cost a thousand dollars; most awful old mausoleum you can imagine; you never saw such a place, for there couldn't be two. The bed I sleep in has all-round curtains of apple-green plush, with bead fringe three inches deep. The mantelpiece and table-top and so on are gray marble, and the ornaments are two deformed gilt cherubs holding a slop-jar with a clock-face in the middle of it. Also two unspeakable alabaster jugs, three feet high, and two Parian busts under glass cases. They are supposed to be Luther and Melanchthon; I think they are Lucifer and Mammon. Well, the poor little thing is used to it, and doesn't know what is the matter. Wait till Monday week,—I mean till some future day,—and she shall know, but not now. She doesn't think it a homelike house, she says!
"I shall be coming back almost any time now, as soon as I can get away. It's dreadful to leave her,—'I'm wae to think upo' yon den, e'en for her sake,'—but I must get back before exams, and she is really all right, only not of course wholly strong yet. She will come back next term; and meanwhile she is to travel with an old servant who was her nurse, and who has some spark of humanity in her composition.
"I'm coming back, I tell you; at least, something is coming back. I don't say whether it will be the Goat or the Wolf, or what; I'm pretty sure that—
"'Lawk a mercy on me,
This is none of I!'
"Good-bye, you feathered things! How do feathers feel? How do you get about? There are good points about the creature, I can see that; you can see in the dark—but so could the Wolf! and it would be nice to be able to ruffle up your feathers and put a tongue in every wound of Puggy's—but she is gone, isn't she? Alas! and if you don't know Shakespeare when I talk him, why, you are an ignorant set, and don't deserve your names. This is for the Innocent, too, mind! Give her my love, and tell her—never mind; I'll tell her myself.