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My hands are so knotted I had to tell mother it was gout in the joints, and she said I must have been drinking too much port." She laughed, but her eyes filled with tears, and she wiped them with hard rubs on a twisted garment, which she afterward shook in the air to dry. "Well, you're a saint, Cynthia, and I wish you weren't," declared Lila almost impatiently.
"Listen, Lila," I said, "good news from somewhere." "We promised to meet her," said Lila. I hate regrets. "Well," I said, "that's all over and done with. There is no use in bothering about it now. But the next promise we make " Berta rushed up to us. "Oh, girls!" she exclaimed, "did you catch that last return? Reform is sweeping the country. Hurrah!"
"I went with Jim Weatherby, Christopher," she said slowly, "and I'm not ashamed of it." The admission wrung a short groan from Cynthia, who stood twisting her gingham apron tightly about her fingers. "Oh, Lila, who was his grandfather?" she cried.
When breakfast was on the table Lila appeared with a reproachful face, hurriedly knotting her kerchief as she entered. "Oh, Cynthia, you promised to let me get breakfast," she said. "Mother was very restless all night she dreamed that she was being married over again so I slept too late." "It didn't matter, dear; I was awake, and I didn't mind getting up. Are you ready to go?"
Lila and I were rushing to get ready for the last skating carnival of the season. Some one knocked at the door. It was Mary, but she didn't turn the knob when I called, "Come." She just waited outside and gave me the trouble of opening it myself. Then in her offish way she asked if we were through with her lexicon.
"When I met her this morning, she looked right through me and didn't see anything there, I reckon," said I, "and, oh, Lila, you were mistaken about her borrowing your skates without leave. It was Martha who had them that morning. In rushing to class she got mixed up and threw them in at the wrong door, that's all. Our example is corrupting the infant." Berta forgot her aching thumb.
In spite of her poetic face she was in thought soundly practical, and though the plain Cynthia might send a fanciful imagination in pursuit of the impossible, to Lila the only destiny worth cherishing at heart was the one that drew its roots deep from the homely soil about her.
The indications were hopeful enough if only Lila would be careful not to drive away this friend as she had the others. Meanwhile on that Saturday morning Bea and Lila, silent and shy, had crowded with their two hundred classmates into chapel. The two friends sat side by side. Lila was in terror of making some horrible blunder that might overwhelm her with a vast indefinite disgrace.
Austin's face was grave and sad, for his heart was touched in sympathy with the bereaved little ones. "Six of them. Think of it, Austin! And Helen is not more than thirteen. She is only a few months older than Lila. Little John can not be two yet, and all of them without a mother!" Tears were bathing Nell's face as she spoke. "Nell, we must go.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Lila over the contents of a letter in her hand. "The summer is not half gone and Nell is coming back. I thought I was to be housekeeper all summer. Oh, dear!" "Surely my little sister is going to make Nell welcome! Think of all that Nell has been to us and our home ever since we began it," said Austin soothingly.
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