“And what about the children?” said her brother; “we must make room for them too, poor things. We can’t keep the mother and her children separate.”
“Of course not, dear Walter,” replied Miss Huntingdon; “we shall be quite prepared to receive them also, though they are at present not with their mother, but under Amos’s charge.”
“Ah, I remember,” said her brother; “well, we can send for them too, when the poor child herself has got here.”
“Am I to write all that?” asked Walter.
“Oh, certainly,” was the reply.
“Then hip, hip, hurrah forty-four thousand times! And now I will write the letter; and then I’ll have a fine bit of fun with Harry.” So the letter was written and duly posted that evening; and Walter, after he had finished it, betook himself to the butler’s pantry.
“Harry,” he said to the worthy old servant, who, wash-leather in hand, was burnishing the plate with all the solemnity of one engaged in some very serious and responsible undertaking, “what do you think?”
“Well, Master Walter, I think a good many things.”
“I daresay you do. But what do you think now?”
“Why, pretty much what I’ve been thinking of for the last half-hour; and that ain’t much to the purpose to any one but myself.”