CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH
AN ANNIVERSARY
"Miss Marion, are you here? I am so glad to see you! I have something to show you. Where is Miss Norah?" Charlotte punctuated her breathless remarks with an ardent embrace.
"Why, Charlotte, how rosy you look, and I believe you have grown two inches!" Miss Carpenter had risen to meet her, and now took the brown face in both her hands and smiled into the blue eyes. "It is good to see you again. When did you get home?"
"Early this morning; and now Aunt Virginia has everything out of our trunks—you would think there had been ten instead of two—and she and Martha are putting away, so I ran," Charlotte answered gayly.
It was September again. The shop, which had been closed for a month while its proprietors took a holiday, had reopened, but the days were still warm, and little was doing. This afternoon, with its shaded windows and its autumn decorations of goldenrod and asters, it looked cool and inviting.
Marion, who had been reading when Charlotte entered, laid her book on the table and motioned to a place beside her in the window-seat. "What have you to show me?" she asked.
"You'll never guess, so I shall have to tell you. And, oh, Miss Marion, I want to ask you something, but I'm afraid."
"Am I so very formidable? I can't imagine what it can be. I'll promise not to answer if I do not like the question."