"There you are mistaken, Ida. But when I think how Aunt Patty took us in when we were troublesome little children, homeless and penniless, and how many sacrifices she has made for us, I feel that I can't do enough to show my love and gratitude. And I believe the day will come when you will appreciate her just as I do, and be heartily sorry that you ever allowed yourself to be ashamed of her, or to utter one word to her discredit."
"Well, I declare, Cynthia, you have read me quite a lecture." Ida laughed as she spoke. She did not seem at all offended. "You are a quaint, old-fashioned little soul, Cynthia. I suppose you don't realize it, though. I wonder if I would have been like you if Aunt Stina had left me here?"
Tears stood thickly in Cynthia's eyes. She wiped them away with the stocking she was darning. She could not trust herself to say another word.
"Have I offended you by calling you quaint and old-fashioned?" asked Ida. "Well, then, you must forgive me, Cynthia, for I didn't intend to be unkind."
Cynthia, who loved her sister dearly in spite of her faults, could not resist the kiss Ida laid lightly on her cheek. She smiled through her tears. "I must try not to be so sensitive," she said. "Of course I know I must strike you as peculiar; I'm so different from the other girls you have known. That Angela Leverton, for instance, to whom you are always writing."
"Oh, Angela is not perfection by any means," said Ida. "But she is very refined, and nothing she does is ever out of taste. We were inseparable, and I miss her dreadfully now."
"Why not have her come to spend a few weeks with us this summer?" asked Cynthia. "I know Aunt Patty—" She stopped suddenly, then added, in a changed tone: "But, of course, it wouldn't do; you'd be ashamed to have her see how you're living now."
"No, I wouldn't care to have her come," said Ida, frankly. "She wouldn't enjoy a visit of even a few days. What could I do to amuse her? Take her to the store to get weighed, I suppose, and to the meetings of your little Band of Hope Circle."
Cynthia laughed. "It isn't very gay here, that's a fact," she said.
Ida had finished the fichu, and was now trying its effect upon herself before the little mirror between the two windows. Suddenly she gave a little start. "There's Mrs. Lennox's carriage coming down the road," she said. "Cynthia, I do believe it is going to stop here. Yes, it has stopped, and Mrs. Lennox is getting out. Where shall we receive her? That dreadfully stuffy parlor—"