“Good girls! you should have a medal for punctuality,” Dr. Landreth remarked, meeting them on the veranda.
“And for bright, happy faces,” added Mr. Dinsmore, handing them to the carriage.
“I don’t think little girls who have everything in the world to make them happy deserve much credit for that, Cousin Horace,” said Annis.
“Well, perhaps not; but there are people who can always find something to growl or fret about.”
The little girls were very merry during the drive, and neither gentleman showed the slightest inclination to check their mirthfulness. But for that there was no occasion, since there was not the least approach to rudeness in any of its manifestations.
On reaching the city they drove directly to the bank in which Mr. Dinsmore and Elsie were depositors. They all went in together, and Annis looked on with great interest while Elsie handed in her check, received the money, and counted it under her father’s supervision.
They spent some hours in the city, sight-seeing and shopping, and returned home to a late dinner, the children rather weary, but in fine spirits and full of merry talk about all they had seen and done.
In the mean while the two ladies had found equal enjoyment at home, spending the day very quietly in Rose’s boudoir, each busy in the fashioning of a dainty garment for her baby-boy, and talking together as they worked.
Both young—though Mildred was Rose’s senior by several years—both happily married, tender mothers, highly cultivated women, earnest Christians, they soon discovered that they had very much in common.
Naturally their talk was at first of the pretty work with which their hands were busied, then of the little ones for whose adornment it was intended, then of their husbands and the days of their courtship. Each already had some slight knowledge of the other’s experience, but now became more fully acquainted with it. Mildred told something of her hard trial in the long years of doubt and uncertainty while she knew not where her beloved wanderer was, and of the support and comfort she found in the presence and love of One nearer and dearer still.