And he laughed, and said, "Thank you, my dear!"
But Mary didn't laugh. She got up and stood staring out of the window into the rainy street; "You send him the skates," she said; "you've seen him, so it wouldn't seem queer."
The skates were sent, and Johnny's mother was eager to see Johnny's smudgy and laborious letter acknowledging "Mr. Robertson's kind present."
"That's a very nice little letter!" she said; "he must be clever, like you. I'll buy some books for him."
That was in January. By April Johnny and his books and his multiplication table and his freckles were almost constantly in her mind. It was about the middle of April that she said to her husband:
"If you haven't a tenant, I suppose we might open father's house for a month? Perhaps being there would be better than—giving presents? If I saw him just once I shouldn't want to give him things."
"I'm afraid you'd want to more than ever," he demurred, which, of course, made her protest:
"Oh no, I shouldn't! Do let's do it!"
"Well," he conceded, in triumphant reluctance—for it was what he had wanted her to say—"if you insist. But I don't believe you'll like it."
So that was how it happened that the weatherworn "For Sale or To Let" sign was taken down, and the rusty iron gates were opened, and the weedy graveled driveway made clean and tidy as it used to be in Johnny's grandfather's time. Johnny himself was immensely interested in all that went on in the way of renovation, and in the beautiful horses that came down before Mr. and Mrs. Robertson arrived.