"Oh! but we agreed to leave it to you. White ones look best by lamplight."
"So they do! Well 'spose you put them in here, as the party meets in the parlor."
"Thank you, ma'am. I am of the same opinion myself."
"And I"—"and I"—said the others; and Mrs. Grant, pleased at having, for once in her life, expressed a decided opinion, "reckoned Becky and Molly wouldn't beat them beds half enough if she didn't follow them up."
The impromptu "rose case," upon which Emma and Laura rallied Ida, was finished before dinner; and resolving themselves into a "committee of inspection," they visited every room in a body, with Miss Betsey and Mrs. Grant as rear guard. Even the wainscotted chambers were cheerful—snow-drifts of beds—and window-hangings lined with pink—stainless toilette covers; painted bouquets upon the fire-screens, and real ones upon the dressing tables.
"Sunnybank deserves its name to-day," said Emma, leading Ida to a window.
The October sun was everywhere; playing with the laughing cascade which fell over the rock, at the foot of the sloping lawn; carpeting the forest with tesselated gold; and the sheen of Ida's pine-grove was as of millions of burnished needles.
"It is brighter here!" said Ida, laying her friend's hand upon her breast.
"You need not say so;—your smile shows it. It is like sunshine itself."
"Shall I tell her?" thought Ida. "Not yet! he will be here in a few days—and then!"—and the heart-bound threw the blood, in a scarlet gush to her cheeks.