“You’ll be sure, won’t you, Mrs. Graham, not to let Tom know she’s going to ride until I get there, because I want to see how surprised she’ll look?”
“Yes, I’ll be sure, never fear.”
“And, Mrs. Graham, here are my coat and hat and dress that I wore last year, and I’ve grown away from them. Would you mind letting Tom wear them?”
“Would I mind?” A swift, hot rush of tears filled Mrs. Graham’s eyes, which presently she wiped away, and somehow then the eyes looked gladder than Kitty had ever seen them before. “Do you think I am so weakly, wickedly proud as to be hurt because you take an interest in my poor girl, and want to put a little happiness into her life,—that still, sad life which she bears so patiently? God bless you, Miss Kitty! and if He doesn’t, it won’t be because I shall get tired of asking Him.”
“And you’ll not let her see the hat and jacket till I come, for fear she’ll think something?”
At last Mrs. Graham smiled—an actual smile.
“How you do think of every thing! No, I’ll keep the hat and jacket out of sight, and I’ll have the dress on her, all ready.”
When Thanksgiving came Kitty scarcely remembered to put on the new fineries that Mrs. Graham had finished with such loving care; scarcely gave a thought to the family festivities at home, so eager was she about Tom’s Thanksgiving. She was to go to Hudson Street just at noon, so that Tom might have the benefit of the utmost warmth of which the chill November day was capable.
First she saw the dinner packed. There was a turkey, and cranberry-sauce, and mince-pie, and plum-pudding, and a great cake full of plums, too, and fruit and nuts, and then Mr. Greenough, who had heard about the dinner with real interest, brought out a bottle of particularly nice sherry, and said to his wife,—