"You look like a regular old emigrant with so many boxes and bags."
"We couldn"t get them all in the trunk," Edna explained, "and so we had to bring them this way. When did you get back, Frank?"
"Last night. We came home with father."
"Then you haven"t had such a very long time in which to miss us," said Mrs. Conway, with a smile.
"Well, it seemed like a long time," returned Frank, "Nothing ever does go right when you"re away, mother."
"What special thing has gone wrong this time?" asked his mother.
"Oh, I couldn"t find anything I wanted this morning, and n.o.body knew where anything was, and Celia didn"t know how to fix anything, and all that."
Mrs. Conway laughed. "That shows how I spoil you all. I am afraid I missed my boys, too, and am glad to get back to them."
"Where"s Celia?" asked Edna.
"She"s home. We all came up together last night. Lizzie had waffles for supper, and Frank ate ten pieces," spoke up Charlie.
"Well, that was all I could get," said Frank, in an injured way. "Lizzie said there were no more."
"Oh, Frank, Frank," laughed his mother. "Well, at any rate, I am glad to know my absence has not affected your appet.i.te."
"Tell us what you did at the Porter"s," said Edna.
"Oh, we just racketed around. We went to a fierce old football game, and we did all sorts of stunts in the house. Steve and Roger have a fine little workshop. I don"t believe I like living right in the city, though. We boys have a heap more fun at a place like this where we can get out-of-doors. Roger and Steve say so, too."
"I am glad you are so well content," observed Mrs. Conway.
"There"s Celia," Edna sang out, seeing some one on the porch watching for them. It was a chill, wintry morning, and they were all glad to hurry indoors to the warm fire. The house looked cozy and cheerful, yellow chrysanthemums in tall vases graced the hall and library; in the latter, an open grate fire glowed, and Edna looked around complacently.
"It is kind of nice to get home," she remarked. "I love it at grandma"s, but I reckon we all like our own home better than other people"s. How are you, Celia? Tell me everything that has been going on at school. How is Dorothy? Did you have a club-meeting and was it a nice one? Oh, I must tell you about the Elderflowers, mustn"t I, mother? Has Agnes gone back to college? Have you seen Miss Eloise?"
"Dear me," cried Celia, "what a lot of questions. I wonder if I can answer them all. Let me see. I"ll have to go backwards, I think. I haven"t seen Miss Eloise, but some of the girls have. She and her sister dined at the Ramseys on Thanksgiving Day."
"I know they had a good dinner, then," remarked Edna, "for I was there myself last Thanksgiving."
"Agnes has gone back to college. Dorothy is well. We had a nice club-meeting, and I missed my little sister"s dear, round, little face.
Dorothy has been so impatient that she can hardly wait to see you. She has been calling me up at intervals all morning to know if you had come yet. There is the telephone now. No doubt it is Dorothy calling."
Edna flew to the "phone and Celia heard. "Yes, this is Edna. Oh, h.e.l.lo, Dorothy. I"m well, how are you? I don"t know; I"ll see. Oh, no, you come over here; that will be much nicer. I have some things to show you.
What"s that? Yes, indeed, I am glad to get back." Then a little tinkle of laughter. "You are a goosey goose; I"m not going to tell you. Come over. Yes, right away if you want to, Dorothy."
She went back to her sister, and established herself in her lap, putting one arm around her neck and stretching out her feet to the warmth of the fire. "It was Dorothy," she said.
"That was quite evident, my dear," returned Celia. "What was it you wouldn"t tell her?"
"Oh, Dorothy is such a goose. She was afraid I had gotten to like some of the Overlea girls better than I do her. Just because I wrote to her about Reliance and Alcinda and all of them. Just as if I couldn"t like more than one girl. Don"t you think it is silly, sister, for anyone to want you to have no other friend, I mean no other best friend? Of course I love Dorothy dearly, but I love Jennie, too, and I am very fond of Netty Black, and, oh, lots of girls. Are you that way about Agnes, Celia?"
Celia felt a pang of self-reproach, for it must be admitted that she had felt a little jealous of the new friends Agnes was making at college. "I don"t suppose I should be?" she answered after a pause. "I suppose it is very selfish and unfair to feel that way about it. Mother says it is very conceited of a person to think she can satisfy every need of a friend, and that it shows only love of self, and not love of your friend, when you want to exclude others from her friendship, and I am sure I don"t want to be either selfish or conceited, and I should hate to be called a jealous person."
"Do you think Dorothy is conceited and selfish?"
"I don"t think she means to be, but when she wants to deprive you of good times with other girls, or is jealous of your friendship for them, she is encouraging conceit and selfishness. I"m glad you asked me about the way I feel toward Agnes, for it makes me see that I am by no means the true friend I ought to be. If I loved her as I should, I"d want her to have all the good times, all the love, all the benefit she could get from others, and I mean to fight against any other feeling but the right one. I don"t believe my little sister will be the jealous kind," she said hugging Edna up.
"If you see me getting that way, I hope you won"t let me," returned Edna earnestly.
"There"s Dorothy now," said Celia, putting down the plump little figure from her lap. And Edna ran out to greet her friend.
There was so much to talk about, so many things to show, that Dorothy must needs stay to lunch. A little later, over came Margaret McDonald to say "How do you do" and to bring some flowers from her mother"s greenhouse. Edna"s tongue ran so fast and she had so much to tell that the afternoon seemed all too short. Dorothy and Margaret, too, had their own affairs to talk about, and it was dark before the two little visitors were ready to go.
The next excitement was the coming of her father, for whom Dorothy watched and who appeared almost gladder than anyone that his wife and little girl were at home again. "This is something like," he said as he came in, his face wreathed in smiles.
"You poor dear," said Edna, in a motherly way, "it has been a lonely time for you, hasn"t it?"
"Pretty lonely, but then it teaches me how to appreciate my family when they get back. My, my, my, what a difference it does make, to be sure. I don"t think I can stand you all skylarking off again very soon."
It was all very cozy and natural after dinner to be back again in the library, Mrs. Conway on one side the table with her fancy work, Mr.
Conway on the other with the evening paper, the boys reading, or sc.r.a.pping in the hall, Celia in the next room at the piano, and Edna herself with the Children"s Page of the paper spread out before her where she lay at full length on the big rug before the fire. Somehow the page of stories and puzzles did not absorb her as much as usual. She wondered what Reliance was doing, if her grandmother felt lonely without her little granddaughter, and if the white kitten missed her. She saw the long street bordered by maples, the store and the postoffice, the white church. Presently she got up and went over to her mother.
"Wouldn"t it be nice," she said, "if one could be in two places at the same time?"
Her mother nodded. "I shouldn"t wonder if you and I were in two places at the same time, or that we had been during the last few minutes, for I am sure while our bodies are here our thoughts have been in Overlea."
"That is just where my thoughts have been," answered Edna. "Do you suppose they miss us, mother?"
"I am afraid they do, very much," said her mother, with a soft, little sigh. "I know if either of my daughters ever goes away to a home of her own, I shall miss her very much when she has left me after making a visit."
Edna stood with her arm still around her mother"s neck. This was rather a new thought. Once her mother had been a little girl like her, of course, and had stood by her mother"s side just like this, and now she was living in quite a different home. Edna tried to imagine how it would seem to come back to this, her childhood"s home, from one of her very own, but it was entirely too difficult a matter so she gave it up and went back to her paper. But in a few minutes, the pictures on the page before her became pictures of Overlea. She was taking the spring-house key to old Nathan Keener that he might unlock his door and let out the white kitten. Then she was half conscious of hearing a voice say: "No, never mind; she is all tired out; I"ll carry her up." Then she was helped to her feet, a pair of strong arms lifted her up, and she was borne up the stairs. She hardly knew who undressed her and stowed her away in bed. She felt a soft kiss on her cheek and then she sank into a deep slumber. The dear little girl"s Thanksgiving holidays were over.