“Excuse me, I forgot,” and Annis’s voice sank to a whisper. “I didn’t wake him though,” she said, stealing on tiptoe to the side of the cradle and bending down over the tiny sleeper. “O Milly, but he is a beauty! even prettier than Zillah’s boy. Don’t you think so?”
“Don’t ask me, and don’t tell Zillah what you think about it,” returned Mildred with a half-amused smile. “But what did you—Ah, I see you have a letter for me,” holding out her hand for it.
“Yes; from Cousin Horace,” Annis answered, putting it into Mildred’s hand; “and see! I have one from Elsie. And, O Milly, they want us to come there to spend the winter, Elsie says. Do you think—”
“Us?”
“Yes; Brother Charlie, you, and me; Fan too, if she will go; but I ’most know she won’t.”
“I doubt if you or I will either; I wouldn’t leave Charlie, he wouldn’t leave his patients, and baby is too young, I fear, for so long a journey.”
Annis’s countenance fell. “O Milly! and I do so want to go! You don’t care much about it, I suppose, because you’ve been there once, but I never have.”
“Well, dear, we’ll discuss the question when your brother comes in,” Mildred said, her eyes upon the open letter in her hand. “Yes, this is from Cousin Horace, and I see contains a very warm invitation from himself, his wife, and Elsie to all four of us—Charlie, my two little sisters, and myself.”
“Well, I’ll go away till Percy wakes,” Annis whispered, with another admiring look at the sleeping babe, and then stole on tiptoe from the room.
She found her mother, Ada, and Fan in the sitting-room, all three busy with the fall sewing for the family.