"I believe I will write to father and tell him I will take his kindness into serious consideration."
"There is no need of haste."
"He will want to begin to make plans. He is a great planner. Marjorie! I just thought of it. We will rent Linnet"s house this summer--or board with her, and superintend the building of our own, Do you agree to that?"
"You haven"t taken it into serious consideration yet."
"Will it make any difference to you--my decision? Will you share my life--any way?"
Prue ran in at that instant, Linnet following. Hollis arose and walked around among the books. Prue squeezed herself into Marjorie"s broad chair; and Linnet dropped herself on the ha.s.sock at Marjorie"s feet, and laid her head in Marjorie"s lap.
There was no trouble in Linnet"s face, only an accepted sorrow.
"Marjorie, will you read to us?" coaxed Prue. "Don"t you know how you used to read in Maple Street?"
"What do you feel like listening to?"
"Your voice," said Prue, demurely.
x.x.xI.
AND WHAT ELSE?
"What is the highest secret of victory and peace?
To will what G.o.d wills."--_W.R. Alger_.
And now what further remains to be told?
Would you like to see Marjorie in her new home, with Linnet"s chimneys across the fields? Would you like to know about Hollis" success as a Christian and a Christian citizen in his native town? Would you like to see the proud, indulgent grandmothers the day baby Will takes his first steps? For Aunt Linnet named him, and the grandfather declares "she loves him better than his mother, if anything!"
One day dear Grandma West came to see the baby, and bring him some scarlet stockings of her own knitting; she looked pale and did not feel well, and Marjorie persuaded her to remain all night.
In the morning Baby went into her chamber to awaken her with a kiss; but her lips were cold, and she would not open her eyes. She had gone home, as she always wanted to go, in her sleep.
That summer Mrs. Kemlo received a letter from her elder daughter; she was ill and helpless; she wanted her mother, and the children wanted her.
"They _need_ me now," she said to Marjorie, with a quiver of the lip, "and n.o.body else seems to. When one door is shut another door is opened."
And then the question came up, what should Linnet and Marjorie do with their father"s home? And then the Holmeses came to Middlefield for the summer in time to solve the problem. Mrs. Holmes would purchase it for their summer home; and, she whispered to Marjorie, "When Prue marries the medical student that papa admires so much, we old folks will settle down here and be grandpa and grandma to you all."
In time Linnet gave up "waiting for Will," and began to think of him as waiting for her. And, in time, they all knew G.o.d"s will concerning them; as you may know if you do the best you can before you see it clearly.
THE END.