"Have you got a pain, Mardie?" cried Sue, anxiously bending over her mother.
"No, dear," she answered, smiling through her tears and stretching a hand to
both children to help her to her feet. "No, dear, I've lost one!"
"I cry when anything aches, not when it stops," remarked Jack, as the three
started again on their walk. "Say, Sukey, you look bigger and fatter than you
did when you went away, and you've got short curls 'stead of long ones. Do you
see how I've grown? Two inches!"
"I'm inches and inches bigger and taller," Sue boasted, standing on tiptoe and
stretching herself proudly. "And I can knit, and pull maple candy, and say
Yee, and sing 'O Virgin Church, how great thy light.'"
"Pooh," said Jack, "I can sing 'A sailor's life's the life for me, Yo ho, yo
ho!' Step along faster, mummy dear; it's 'most supper time. Aunt Louisa won't
scold if you're with me. There's the house, see? Father'll be working in the
garden covering up the asters, so they won't freeze before you come."
"There is no garden, Jack. What do you mean?" "Wait till you see if there's no
garden! Hurrah! there's father at the window, side of Aunt Louisa. Won't he be
pleased I met you halfway and brought you home!"
Oh! it was beautiful, the autumn twilight, the smoke of her own hearth-side
rising through the brick chimneys! She thought she had left the way of peace
behind her, but no, the way of peace was here, where her duty was, and her
husband and children.
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