"Just one week more and Fourth of July will be here," announced Peace from her seat on the grass, as she counted off the days on her fingers. They were all gathered under the trees that warm afternoon, Aunt Pen and Elizabeth with their sewing, the minister with a magazine from which he had been reading aloud, Giuseppe with his beloved violin, from which he was seldom separated, the lame girl lying in her accustomed place, and Peace and Glen gambolling in the grass at their feet.
"Why, so it will," said the invalid in surprise.
"Do you s'pose grandpa will get back by that time?"
"Should you care if he did not?" asked preacher teasingly.
"John!" reproved Elizabeth, tapping him gently on the head with her thimble. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself to ask such a question?"
"No offense, ladies, no offense intended, I assure you! I merely wondered if Peace could be getting homesick."
"Me homesick! Oh, no, I'm not homesick, but I'll bet the other folks are by this time. I've been gone so long. One week of March, all of April and May, and nearly all of June—that's three months already; and I've never been away from the girls more'n a night or two at a time before."
There was a wistful look in the brown eyes in spite of her emphatic denial that she was homesick, and Elizabeth sought to turn the conversation by saying meditatively, "I wonder what Glen will think of the Fourth of July celebration? He was almost too young last year to notice anything of that sort, and besides, we had a very quiet day at Parker. Everyone had gone to the city for their fun."
"Yes, it was quiet in Parker last year. Hec Abbott was away all day, and I didn't have any fire-crackers," Peace observed; then, noting the broad smile that bathed all the faces, she added hastily, "I s'pose it was just as well, 'cause it was an awful dry summer, and like enough we would have set the place on fire. That's why Gail wouldn't let us have any, but this year we're going to make up for all we've missed—if grandpa gets home in time. We've got dollars and dollars in our bank—Allee and me—left over from dec'rating our room, and we're going to blow it all up celebrating the Fourth, so's to be patriotic. Grandpa says love of country is something every 'Merican needs, so we're beginning young at our house. Grandpa says—"
"What does grandpa say?" boomed a dear, familiar voice behind her, and she bounced to her feet with a wild shriek of joy, for leaning against the iron gates at the end of the walk stood the genial President, while in the carriage just beyond sat Grandma Campbell and the three younger sisters, all fidgeting with eagerness to meet the small maid whose face they had not seen for so long a time.