'And Doddie and I have saved sixteen and sixpence, you know, mamma,' I said. 'We meant to buy a camp bedstead for the hut, you know, whenever you would let us furnish the room that is going to be our drawing-room now. So we can still get one for Dods if you like, or anything else needed.'
'Yes, darling,' said mamma. 'That will be very nice. We can wait a little till we see what is most required.'
She spoke quite as seriously as I had done, though I know now that sixteen and sixpence is really not nearly as much money as I then thought it. But that is what has always been so dear about mamma; she never 'snubs' us. And many people, even really very kind people, do hurt children's feelings dreadfully sometimes without in the least meaning it. It is one of the things I mean to try always to remember when I am quite grown-up myself, and it would be very wrong and ungrateful of any of us ever to forget it, for our father and mother have shown us such a good example about it.
Then mamma went off to write some letters and I to the schoolroom to practise, which had to be done, holidays or no holidays!
'I wonder if we shall have a piano at the hut,' I thought. 'I shan't very much mind if we don't,' for at that time I did not care much for music, not, at least, for my own performances. Since then I have come to 'appreciate' it a little better, though I am not at all clever about it, and I am afraid papa and mamma are rather disappointed at this. But Esmé is learning the violin and plays already so well that I hope she will make up for me.
I kept running to the window—the schoolroom overlooks the drive—every time I heard the sound of wheels, to see if it was papa and Geordie coming back, which was very silly, as of course they would have a good deal to do, measuring and seeing the carpenter and arranging it all. But I felt as if I could not settle to anything till I knew about the iron room, as it did seem as if the whole plan depended a good deal on our getting it. And when at last I did catch sight of the dogcart coming swiftly along the avenue, my heart began to beat so fast that I had to stop once or twice to take breath on my way to the hall-door.
Mamma was there before me, as anxious as I, I do believe, though she was too sensible to show it.
But before they got to the house, we knew it was all right. Geordie stood up in the cart and waved his cap for us to understand.
'Oh, I am so glad!' I cried, and mamma smiled.
How strangely things change their—oh, dear, I can't find just the right word; yes, I have it now 'aspects'—in life sometimes. This was Monday; on Saturday only had we heard the sad news, and here we were, quite in good, almost high spirits again, about a little bettering of what, if we had foreseen it a week ago, we should certainly have thought a cloud with no silver lining!