AT GRANDPA PARLIN'S.
It was over at last—the long, tedious journey, which Horace spoiled for everybody, and which nobody but Horace enjoyed.
When they drove up to the quiet old homestead at Willowbrook, and somebody had taken the little baby, poor Mrs. Clifford threw herself into her mother's arms, and sobbed like a child. Everybody else cried, too; and good, deaf grandpa Parlin, with smiles and tears at the same time, declared,—
"I don't know what the matter is; so I can't tell whether to laugh or cry."
Then his daughter Margaret went up and said in his best ear that they were just crying for joy, and asked him if that wasn't a silly thing to do.
Grace embraced everybody twice over; but Horace was a little shy, and would only give what his aunties called "canary kisses."
"Margaret, I want you to give me that darling baby this minute," said Mrs. Parlin, wiping her eyes. "Now you can bring the butter out of the cellar: it's all there is to be done, except to set the tea on the table."
Then grandma Parlin had another cry over little Katie: not such a strange thing, for she could not help thinking of Harry, the baby with sad eyes and pale face, who had been sick there all the summer before, and was now an angel. As little Prudy had said, "God took him up to heaven, but the tired part of him is in the garden."
Yes, under a weeping-willow. Everybody was thinking just now of tired little Harry, "the sweetest flower that ever was planted in that garden."
"Why, Maria," said Mrs. Clifford, as soon as she could speak, "how did you ever travel so far with this little, little baby?"