"I'm tired of the subject, and it's time for you to go to bed," was the ungracious rejoinder.
Usually so unkind a rebuff from her sister would have caused Grace a fit of crying, but she was too happy for that to-night. She slipped quietly away into her mamma's rooms, and when ready for bed came to the door again with a pleasant "Good-night, Lulu, and happy dreams!"
Lulu, already repentant, sprang to meet her with outstretched arms.
"Good-night, you dear little thing!" she exclaimed with a hug and kiss.
"I wish you had a better sort of a sister. Perhaps you will some day,—in
little Elsie."
"I love you dearly, dearly, Lu!" was the affectionate rejoinder, accompanied by a hearty return of the embrace.
"I wish mamma would come up, for I want to tell her; 'cause I know it will make her glad too," Grace said to herself as she got into bed. "I mean to stay awake till she comes."
But scarcely had the little curly head touched the pillow ere its owner was fast asleep, and so the communication was deferred till morning.
When Violet came into the room she stepped softly to the bedside, and bending over the sleeping child gazed with tender scrutiny into the fair young face.
"The darling!" she murmured, "what a passing sweet and peaceful expression she wears! I noticed it several times during the evening; a look as if some great good had come to her."
A very gentle kiss was laid on the child's forehead, and Violet passed on into Lulu's room, moved by a motherly solicitude to see that all was well with this one of her husband's children also.
The face that rested on the pillow was round and rosy with youth and health, the brow was unruffled, yet the countenance lacked the exceeding sweet expression of her sister's.