“There’s always something wrong with people who worry, when worry is not due, Molly darling,” Win reminded her. He had been thinking for a moment or two that he saw a carriage appear and disappear down the road, revealed and concealed by its turns. Now it came into sight, approaching.
“Oh, Mary—Win!” gasped Jane, springing out of the hammock where she had been lying, so pale that Mary was forced to notice it in the midst of her answering excitement.
“Steady, kids!” murmured Win sympathetically, as the carriage stopped at the gate.
Florimel uttered a queer cry and bolted into the house. Mary, as white as Jane, moved forward as if in a dream, and Jane followed her; Win brought up the rear. A lady got out of the carriage; neither girl saw her clearly. They received an impression of an elusive perfume, soft fabrics, a vivid, tender face, and arms encircling them in turn; while a voice, most lovely in tone and quality, as soft and hauntingly sweet as the fabrics and the fragrance, said with an English accent:
“Oh, not really! I’m going back! Not such tall, tall girls my daughters! You make an old woman of me on the instant! Where’s the other one? I know Jane by her hair; so you are Mary. And Win! Grown up—but you are older than the girls; that’s a comfort. Oh, my dears, I’m so tired! Do you think you can give me tea? I still feel that wretched boat tossing; we had a rough crossing. Have you my veil, Mr. Moulton? Ah, yes; thanks. Fancy your being so grown and so pretty, children! Thank goodness, you’re decidedly pretty, though too pale. I wonder why America bleaches its girls?”
“Our girls are as rosy as you could ask, Mrs. Garden,” Mr. Moulton came to the rescue as Mrs. Garden’s lovely voice ceased; neither Mary nor Jane had spoken. “They are overwhelmed by seeing you. I told you what it meant to them to have you return to them from the dead—as they thought.”
“Naturally!” said Mrs. Garden, pressing the arm that happened to be nearest to her—Jane’s. “And fancy what it means to me to see you again, my dears! I should have written you, but your guardian and Anne Kennington forbade me. They thought it would make you quite too unhappy to be separated from me, knowing me alive. I dare say they were right. I positively could not have you with me, going about as I did. Oh, children, pity your little mother! Her voice is gone!”
“Indeed we are sorry, mother, darling,” said Mary, finding her own voice in response to the appeal in her mother’s. “But we can’t be as sorry as we would like to be because its going meant your coming—home.”
“That’s a nice little speech, Mary,” said her mother. “I’m glad you know how to say pretty things. It’s a great gift for a woman to say the right thing at the right moment.”
“Mary does not make pretty speeches, Mrs. Garden. She says the right thing because she feels the right way,” said Win, flushing.