"They're so glad to see the Peppers again, father," said Mrs. Whitney with bright eyes. "You took them away from all these good people, you know; it's but fair to give them up for one day."
The old gentleman fumed and fretted, however, in a subdued fashion; at last wisely turning his back, he began to stalk down the platform, under pretense of examining the landscape.
"Your friends will stay with us," Mrs. Henderson was saying in a gently decisive manner, "the old parsonage is big enough," she added with a laugh.
"Oh! you are so good and thoughtful, dear Mrs. Henderson," cried Mrs. Pepper with delight at the thought of the homelike warmth of the parsonage life awaiting the old gentleman, for whom she was dreading the dreary hotel.
"I'm good to ourselves," declared the parson's wife gaily.
Jasper gave a shout when the new arrangement was declared, as it presently was by Percy and Van, who flung themselves after him as he was seeing to the luggage with Ben, and his face glowed with the greatest satisfaction.
"That is jolly," he exclaimed, "and that's a fact! Now, Ben, we're but a stone's throw apart. Rather different, isn't it, old fellow, from the time when I used to race over from Hingham with Prince at my heels?"
Dr. Fisher's little thin, wiry figure was now seen advancing upon the central group, and everybody fell away to let him have his chance to welcome the Peppers.
"I couldn't get here before," he cried, his eyes glowing behind his spectacles. "I've left a very sick patient. This is good," he took them all in with a loving glance, but his hand held to Polly. "Now I'm going to drive you down in my gig," he said to her at last. "Will you come?"
"Yes, indeed," cried Polly in delight, as her mother smiled approval, and she ran off to let him help her in. "It's only yesterday since you took me to drive, Dr. Fisher, and you gave me my stove—is it?" And so she rambled on, the little doctor quite charmed to hear it all.