“Certainly, my dear; just as you please. It’s a great thing for little people to learn to spend money wisely.”
Saying this, he seated himself by the window, and drawing me towards him, placed me upon one knee.
“Gracie, dear, I have just received a letter from grandmother. She proposes that I come to Vermont and bring you; that I remain as long as business will admit, and leave you to pass the summer just as you did last year. How would that suit?” fixing his kind dark eyes full upon my upturned face to read my changing thoughts.
“O, I should like it very much!” I quickly exclaimed, clapping my hands with delight. Then I reflected a moment, and a shadow fell over my prospective happiness.
“On the whole, papa,” I said, earnestly, “I think I had better go, and not stay any longer than you can stay. I am all the little girl you have, and you are all the parent I have, and we should be very lonely without each other.”
I felt his warm, loving kiss upon my cheek as he folded me to his heart, and a tear fell on my forehead. For two years I had been motherless; but a double portion of pity and tenderness had been lavished upon me by my indulgent father. He was a New York merchant of ample means. Our home was elegant and tasteful.
The home of my father’s only surviving parent, my doting grandmother, whom we were designing to visit, was a plain, unpretending farm-house, snuggly nestled up among the hills of Vermont. There were tall poplar trees and a flower-garden in front, a little orchard and a whole row of nice looking out-buildings in the rear. There was no place on earth so full of joy for me. The swallows’ nests on the barn; the turkeys, geese, and chickens; the colt, lambs, and little pigs; in short, everything had an ever-increasing attraction, far exceeding any pleasures to be found within the limits of the crowded city.
The prospect of another visit to Woodville filled my heart with intense delight.
A week passed, and on one of the sunniest and freshest of June mornings we started for Vermont. I was exceedingly fond of travelling in the cars, and it seemed as if a thousand sunbeams had suddenly fallen upon my young life. The train left New York, and we found ourselves rapidly whirling past hills, forests, towns, and villages. Sometimes we were flying through dark, deep cuts, then crossing streams and rich green fields and meadows.
We expected to reach grandmother’s that evening. I had written to inform her of our coming. One hour after another passed. The day was declining, and the sun was slowly sinking in the west.