"I'd give the world to know. I can't bear the idea of your going away from the farm."
"But if I go I shall return; a bird always comes back to its nest, and I shall come back to your arms. Shall I tell you a secret?" she whispered. Her mother nodded with a little smile on her lips, and tried to be interested; but all the time she knew that behind the shut door of the best parlor something was going on that might change the whole current of their lives. "Father doesn't want to sit so much in-doors as he has done," Margaret continued; "so he means to buy a tent, a little square one, open in front, with room for a writing-table and two easy-chairs, and a little sofa made of basket-work, you know. It's to be put up at the edge of the field, and when it's fine he will sit there and work, and sometimes we are going to invite you to tea—"
"My word! what will Hannah say?"
"Oh, she'll make a fuss, but it won't matter, for father's father. We shall have a glorious summer," she added, with a sigh of content, "and I am so glad it's coming. I don't believe Hannah's heaven will be half so good as this world is in summer-time, when everything is green and a dear mother loves you."
"It will be your heaven, too, Margey, dear," Mrs. Vincent said. "I don't like you to talk so—"
"Then I won't," Margaret answered, impulsively. "I won't do anything you don't like. Here is father."
"He has come to tell us something," Mrs. Vincent said. She started from her chair and looked at him, and then for a moment at the green world beyond the porch, as if she felt that it would give her strength. But his news was not what she had expected.
"I'm going to London on Monday morning," he said, "and should like to take Margaret with me. Can she go?"
"How long is it to be for?" Mrs. Vincent asked, while Margaret stood breathless, seeing in imagination a panorama of great cities pass before her eyes.
"Only for a day and a night."