“No, indeed I did not, for it may be the children will have a chance yet some day, for a bit of an outing.”
“I have decided they are all to have it yet, Mrs. Bennett, this very summer, and just as Miss Julia planned, too. That’s what I came to tell you, if you will trust them to me.”
“Trust you! Oh, my dear! but it would be too much care for those young shoulders; too much by far.”
“Mrs. Bennett,” said Courage, so earnestly as to carry conviction, “I thought so at first, too, but the plan has grown to be just as dear to me as it was to Miss Julia, and now, if you do not let me carry it out, I do not see how I can ever live through this first summer.”
“Then indeed I will let you,” and then she added slowly, and with an accent on every word, “and you are just Miss Julia’s own child!” and Courage thought them the very sweetest words she had ever heard, or ever could hear again.
“May I tell the children?” she asked, eagerly. “Where are they?”
Mrs. Bennett did not answer. I believe she could not, but she opened the window and Courage knew that meant the children were below in their favourite corner.
“Oh, let me call them, please,” resting one hand on Mrs. Bennett’s arm and leaning far out over the sill.
“Children! come up stairs for a moment, I have something to tell you. Come up quickly.” Courage hardly knew her own voice, it rang out so cheerily.
“Oh, Miss Courage!” chorused four little voices, only this time the sound was in her ears as well as in her heart, and as she watched the children tumble helter-skelter from the horses in the yard way down below her, a smile that was almost merry drove the shadows from her face.