"All right. Come, I am just all a-quiver to see Grandie. And, girls, will you mind if I ask you to go out first? I must bring one little thing to Grandie, and it's part of our secret." She smiled sweetly and the girls answered with just as pretty, dimpled acquiescence.
No one would dream of inquiring what Mary was bringing to the sick man at Crow's Nest, but it seemed to be associated with the orchids. Just why anything there should be made a secret of puzzled the girls.
In a few minutes Mary joined them on the porch, and Tom threw in the clutch of the car, rather impatiently, as they piled in the machine again.
It was a perfect day, and the girls fairly bubbled with the joy of it, as the taxi rattled on.
"You come in with me, won't you, Cleo?" Mary asked, when the car swung into Crow's Nest tan-barked drive.
"If you want me to," assented Cleo, "but do you think your Grandie would like a third party to spoil your fairy confab?"
"Oh, I am sure he would like to meet all the girls again," Mary spoke politely, "but just to-day among those strangers, perhaps two of us would be best."
So it was agreed, and Cleo jumped out with Mary, while Grace and Madaline prepared to play "finger scotch" while they waited outside in the car.
A boy in white duck uniform opened the door and showed the girls into a very restful waiting room. Presently a white robed nurse appeared, took Mary's name simply as "Mary to see Professor Benson," went to a wall phone, and returned to conduct the girls to the waiting patient.
What a lovely surprise! There sat the professor out in a big, comfortable steamer chair, on the loveliest little porch, right out of the window from his own room.