The village people were then offered more refreshments, and as they could not take much, everything that was left was ordered to be given amongst them; but none of them had gone, when all who had come from the house returned to it.
"I am very sorry you are going, dear Lucy and Emily and Henry," said Miss Darwell; "I have had the happiest day I ever had in my life. I thought I should like you, but I did not know how very much it would be."
The little girls then kissed each other, and Mrs. Colvin gave them a note for their mother.
"This," she said, "is to tell Mrs. Fairchild, that I care not how often you and Miss Darwell meet. I can add no more to that."
The children were to go home with their father and mother; and if they loved Miss Darwell much already, they loved her more for her kindness when they saw three
large brown paper parcels under the seat of the little carriage.
They had a sweet drive home, though they had not time to tell all that had happened to their mother till the next day; but their parents knew, from Mrs. Colvin's note, as soon as they got home, that their children had behaved very well.
"In their neatest morning dresses."—[Page 383].
