Job Smith and his wife were gone.
"I will wait for my brother," said Nettie, and her heart swelled with pride as she said it.
How nice to have a brother to wait for, just as Miss Sherrill was doing. At that moment the "beautiful lady" as Sate and Susie called her, came to Nettie's side.
"Good-evening," she said pleasantly. "I hope the little girls are well; I met your brother last night; he helped my brother to hang the flowers. I see they are upstairs together now, admiring their work. My brother said he was a very intelligent helper. You do not know how much I thank you for those flowers. They helped me to sing to-night."
"I thought," said Nettie, raising her great truthful eyes to the lady's face and speaking with an earnestness that showed she felt what she said, "I thought you sang as though the angels were helping you. I don't think they can sing any sweeter."
"Thank you," said Miss Sherrill; she smiled as she spoke, yet there were tears in her eyes; the honest, earnest tribute seemed very unlike a little girl, and very unlike the usual way of complimenting her wonderful voice. "I saw that you liked music," she said, "I noticed you while I was singing. Will you let me give you a couple of tickets for the concert to-morrow evening; and will you and your brother come to hear me sing? I am going to sing something that I think you will like."
Nettie went home behind the lilies and the boys, her heart all in a flutter of delight. What a wonderful thing had come to her! The concert for which the best singers in town had been so long practising, and for which the tickets were fifty cents apiece, and which she had no more expected to attend than she had expected to hear the real angels sing that week, was to take place to-morrow evening, and she had two tickets in her pocket!
Mrs. Decker was waiting for them, her nose pressed against the glass; she started forward to open the door for the boys, before Nettie could reach it. There was such a look of relief on her face when she saw Norm as ought to have gone to his very heart; but he did not see it; he was busy settling the salver in a safe place.
"Has father come in?" Nettie asked, as she followed her mother to the back step, where she went for the dipper at Norm's call.
"Yes, child, he has, and went straight to bed. He didn't say two words; but he wasn't cross; and he hadn't drank a drop, I believe."