“It’s been lovely,” agreed Daisy, “but there’s going to be a happier one still, and that will be the day Papa comes home. I wish we could tell Lizzie about everything, she’d be so interested, and perhaps we shall see her when we go to the country, for Mary says her husband keeps the grocery store at Glenwood, and that’s only five miles from us.”
“And just think, Grandma and Aunt Kate never even heard of Miss Polly,” reflected Molly. “They might be just as happy as we are to-night, if they only took a little interest in other things besides missionaries.”
CHAPTER XIV
MRS. WINSLOW GETS A TELEGRAM
IT was a glorious morning towards the end of June, and the four little Winslows were comfortably established under the big apple-tree. The Winslow Homestead was on the banks of the Hudson, and from where they sat, the children could watch the boats on the river, and even hear the sound of the paddles, as the big excursion steamers plied their busy way between New York and Albany. They could look across to the opposite shore, where the Palisades rose in forms like castles, from the very brink of the river. It was a beautiful view, and the children loved it, as their father had loved it before them. The place had been in the Winslow family for three generations, and old Dr. Winslow himself had climbed that very apple-tree when a boy, and brought down many a shower of half-ripe apples for his younger brothers and sisters. Dulcie and Daisy had never wearied of their father’s stories of his boyhood at the old homestead on the Hudson, and the two weeks since the family had left the city had been very pleasant ones.
“I don’t know why it is, but Grandma always seems rather nicer in summer than she does in winter,” Molly had remarked only that morning. “She doesn’t scold half so much, and she lets us do pretty nearly everything we want to.”
“I think it’s because there’s so much more room,” Dulcie decided. “We are not so much in her way. I think the less Grandma sees of us, the better she likes us.”
“Perhaps it’s because Papa’s coming home soon, and she knows she isn’t going to have us much longer,” Daisy suggested. “She says I may help pack the next missionary box. I love to see what they send to the missionaries, only I wish some of the ladies wouldn’t send quite such shabby things. I don’t see how any missionary could possibly use them.”
But at this particular moment the little girls were not thinking of Grandma or of missionaries either, for Dulcie was reading “A Peep Behind the Scenes” aloud, and for the past hour they had all been completely absorbed in the story.
“It’s very sad,” remarked Dulcie, pausing at the conclusion of a chapter to wipe her eyes. “I wish something horrid would happen to that stepmother, and Rosalie would hurry and find her Aunt Lucy.”
“Stepmothers must be awful,” said Molly, glancing up from the tea-cozy she was crocheting. “Almost every one we’ve read about is cruel.”