"I think Estelle is different from most girls," she said gently. "Our grandmother lived until a short time ago, and we loved her very clearly, and that made Estelle like every old-fashioned thing more than she would. Mother says that most girls have to get old and gray-haired before they prize their girlhood or know what is valuable."
"That is true enough," said Mother Morgan emphatically.
Then Louise—
"I wonder if I can find John anywhere? I want him to help me to hang pictures and curtains. Do you suppose father can spare him a little while?"
"John!" said the wondering mother. "Do you want his help? Why, yes, father will spare him, I daresay, if he will do anything; but I don't suppose he will."
"Oh yes," said Louise gaily, "he promised to help me; and besides, he invited the minister here himself, or at least seconded the invitation heartily, so of course he will have to help to get ready for him."
"Well, there he is now, in the shed. You get him to help if you can; I'll risk his father. And move things about where you would like to have them; I give this room into your hands. If you can make it look as pleasant as the kitchen, I'll wonder at it. It was always a dreadful dull-looking room, somehow."
And the mollified mother went her way. An apology was a soothing sort of thing. It was very nice to have the long-despised old settle and table (dear to her by a hundred associations, so dear that she would have felt it a weakness to own it) not only tolerated but actually admired with bright eyes and eager voice; but to engage, in any enterprise whatever, her youngest son, so that there might be hope of his staying at home with the family the whole of Tuesday evening—an evening when, by reason of the meeting of a certain club in the village, he was more than at any other time exposed to temptation and danger—was a thought to take deep root in this mother-heart. She did not choose to let anybody know of her anxiety concerning this boy; but really and truly it was the sore ache in her heart, and the thinking of the brightness of Louise's care-free face in contrast with her own heavy-heartedness, that developed the miseries of the morning. After all, to our limited sight, it would seem well, once in a while, to have peeps into each other's hearts.
Greatly to his mother's surprise, and somewhat to his own, John strode at first call into the front room, albeit he muttered as he went: "I don't know anything about her gimcracks; why don't she call Lewis?"
"Are you good at driving nails?" Louise greeted him with; "Because Lewis isn't. He nearly always drives one crooked."