"Yes, always, always love Edie," said the child; and Johnnie chimed in too, "And me—me always love Edie."
But there were the boys to be told after that—Alfred and Claude, the two bright boys of ten and eight years, who had been her own especial playmates; and loud was their outcry when they heard that Edith was going.
"We might as well have no sisters," said the ungrateful young rascals. "Maude and Jessie don't care for us. They only think we're in the way. They're always telling us to wipe our feet, and not make such a noise; and Francie's too little for anything. We'd only got Edith, and now she's to go. It's too bad, that it is!"
But their protest availed nothing. The very same night Dr. Harley wrote to his sister, thanking her for her kind offer, and adding that, if convenient, he would bring his daughter Edith, fifteen years of age, to her aunt's home at Silchester in a week's time.
There was much to do in that short week in getting Edith's wardrobe into something like order. Each of the elder sisters sacrificed one of their limited number of dresses to be cut down and altered for the younger one.
The May sunshine of a rather late spring was beginning to grow warm and genial at last, and the girl really must have a new hat and gloves and shoes, and one or two print frocks, before she could possibly put in an appearance at Aunt Rachel's.
Almost anything had done for running about the lanes at Winchcomb, where every one knew the Harleys, and respected them far more for not going beyond their means, than they would have done for any quantity of fine apparel.
Goodbye!
But the preparations were finished at last, the goodbyes were said, and Edith, leaving home for the first time in her life, sat gravely by her father's side in the train that was timed to reach Silchester by six in the evening.
She had been up very early that morning, before any of the others were astir; and when she was dressed, went out into the garden, where she could be alone, to think her last thoughts of the wonderful change in her life.