“Particularly as there’s nobody offering to pair off with you yet, my pretty young sister,” laughed Walter. “I think, though, that the school-room is the best place for you and me for a while yet.”
“Ah, Marian, here is a letter for you, my bonny lass; from your brother Sandy, I presume,” said Mr. Lilburn, holding it out to her.
She took it eagerly, exclaiming, “Oh, yes, that is Sandy’s writing! The dear laddie! how I have wanted to hear from him.”
“Read it, lass, and tell us if he says he will come to us, and if so how soon,” said the old gentleman.
She hastened to obey, and presently announced in joyous tones, “Oh, yes, Cousin Ronald, he is delighted with your kind offer, and will come as soon as he has finished his present engagement, which will be in about a couple of months.”
In the mean time Arthur had opened and read a letter handed him by his brother. He looked much pleased with its contents.
“Cousin Elsie,” he said, “do you think you can accommodate me here a few days longer?”
“I am quite certain of it, provided you will stay,” she answered with her own bright, sweet smile. “You need not have the slightest fear that you are not as welcome as the sunlight.”
“Thank you very much,” he said; “then I shall stay perhaps another week. This letter is from Cousin Dick Percival. He writes he has come there—to Roselands—for change of scene and air, as well as to see his relatives; can stay some weeks, and will take charge of my patients for a time, which he has in fact already begun to do.”
“How nice!” exclaimed Rosie. “Dick is a good boy to enable us to keep you a little longer, and when you go back he will, I hope, come and pay a little visit here himself.”