Now, after an absence of fourteen months, he might be home at any moment; but there had been a gap in the correspondence—no letters for more than two months. The maternal anxiety would have communicated itself to the family, if it had not been that William’s company had heard from the young man in the interim, and could assure the anxious Mr. Carter that his son was well and doing business with eminent talent and success. Mr. Payson, the head of the establishment, lived in town, and he was liberal in his praise.
Mrs. Carter’s mind dwelt upon this with a feeling of maternal pride, still tempered with anxiety, when she became aware that Emily and Leigh were quarreling openly because of the latter’s unfeeling remark that a girl with a snub nose and freckles should never do her hair in a Greek knot.
“It’s enough to make a cat laugh,” said Leigh. “What have you got to balance that knob on the back of your head?”
“Leigh, dear, don’t plague sister so,” Mrs. Carter remonstrated mildly.
“As if a boy like Leigh knew anything about a girl’s hair!” cried Emily indignantly. “It’s a psyche-knot.”
Leigh laughed derisively; but at this moment, when the quarrel had become noisy enough to disturb Mr. Carter, it was interrupted by the entrance of the morning mail. Miranda, the colored maid of all work, appeared with a replenished coffee-pot and a letter for Mrs. Carter.
The anxious mother gave a cry of joy.
“My goodness—it’s from Willie!”
The interest became general, and five pairs of expectant eyes focussed on Mrs. Carter as she opened the envelope, her fingers shaking with eagerness. Miranda, to whom the fifth pair of eyes belonged, became unusually attentive to Daniel, and insisted on replenishing his coffee-cup.
“This was written in Paris,” Mrs. Carter exclaimed eagerly, “and—and posted in New York! I wonder! ‘Dear mother,’” she began reading aloud, her voice tremulous with joy, “‘I’m coming home on the Britannic, and I’m bringing you the—the——’”