Gilbert and Nancy
let go of You Dirty Boy simultaneously, and he fell to the floor in two
large fragments, the break occurring so happily that the mother and the
washcloth were on one half, and the boy on the other,--a situation long
desired by the boy, to whom the parting was most welcome!
"She got off at the wrong station," panted Kathleen at the foot of the
stairs, "and had to be driven five miles, or she would have got here as
she planned, an hour before we did. She's come to help us settle, and
says she was afraid mother would overdo. Did you drop anything? Hurry
down, and I'll leave the vases here, in among the furniture; or shall I
take back two of them to show that they were our first thought?--And oh!
I forgot. She's brought Julia! Two more to feed, and not enough beds!"
Nancy and Gilbert confronted each other.
"Hide the body in the corner, Gilly," said Nancy; "and say, Gilly--"
"Yes, what?"
"You see he's in two pieces?"
"Yes."
"_What do you say to making him four, or more_?"
"I say you go downstairs ahead of me and into the house, and I follow
you a moment later! Close the barn door carefully behind you!--Am I
understood?"
"You are, Gilly! understood, and gloried in, and reverenced. My spirit
will be with you when you do it, Gilly dear, though I myself will be
greeting Cousin Ann and Julia!"
XII
COUSIN ANN
Mother Carey, not wishing to make any larger number of persons
uncomfortable than necessary, had asked Julia not to come to them until
after the house in Beulah had been put to rights; but the Fergusons went
abroad rather unexpectedly, and Mr.
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