“I’ll grind the nut meats,” offered Roger.
“And ask for heavy pay in marguerites!” laughed Ethel Brown.
“I scorn your aspersions of my character,” returned her brother solemnly. “What are you going to have to drink?”
“Coffee—grape-juice—lemonade—the usual things.”
“I think that’s a pretty good list. Write it down and let’s see what Aunt Louise thinks of it,” recommended Helen.
CHAPTER XVI
COLUMBUS DAY
Ethel Blue, as Columbus Day approached, was filled with many strange feelings, some of them far from pleasant. When she read a letter from her father a few days before the twelfth she felt as if dread had brought upon her exactly what she had dreaded. The letter was filled with loving expressions but it told her that her father was to be married very soon.
“I know that you will love the dear lady who has honored me by saying that she will relieve my loneliness,” he wrote.
“I would have relieved his loneliness if he had given me a chance,” Ethel sobbed to herself as she lay on her bed and read the tear-blotted lines for the tenth time.
“It will be a sorrow to you to leave Aunt Marion and your cousins, but perhaps the thought that now you will belong in a home of your own will make up for it, in part, at any rate. I don’t see how we can all help being happy together, and we must all try to make each other happy.”