"We want to get home now," continued Norton.
"But it is pleasant here, too. O Norton!" Matilda broke out suddenly, "you don't know how pleasant! Now I can take the good of it. I did before, in a way; but then I was always thinking it would maybe stop to-morrow. Now it will never stop; I am so glad!"
"What will never stop?"
"O I don't know. It seems to me my happiness will never stop. You don't know anything about it, Norton. To think I am not to go back to that old life again—I was afraid of it every day; and now to-night at tea, and now, I am as happy as I can be. I can't think of it enough."
"Of what, Pink?"
"Of that. That I am not to go back to aunt Candy any more."
"What do you think of where you are going?" asked Norton a little jealously. But his face cleared the next instant.
"Norton," said Matilda, "I can't think of it,—not yet. It is too good to think of all at once. I have to take part at a time. If I did think of it, I don't know but it would seem too good to be true."
"Well it isn't," said Norton. "Now Pink, we'll fix those hyacinth and tulip beds all right. You haven't chosen your bulbs yet. And then, when we have planted our bulbs—I hope it is not too late yet, but I declare I don't know!—perhaps we'll leave the winter to take care of them, and we'll go off to New York till spring. How would you like that?"
"I don't care where I go," said Matilda,—"with you and Mrs. Laval."