home with him since Sunday."

"What is the matter with your clothes?" asked Susanna, casting a
maternal eye over him while she pulled him down here and up there, with
anxious disapproving glances. "You look so patched, and wrinkled, and
grubby."

"Aunt Louisa and father make me keep my best to put on for you, if you
should come. I clean up and dress every afternoon at train time, only I
forgot today and came fishing."

"It's too cold to fish, sonny."

"It ain't too cold to fish, but it's too cold for 'em to bite,"
corrected Jack.

"Why were you expecting us just now?" asked Susanna. "I did n't write
because... because, I thought... perhaps... it would be better to
surprise you."

"Father's expecting you every day, not just this one," said Jack.

Susanna sank down on a stone at the end of the bridge, and leaning her
head against the railing, burst into tears. In that moment the worst of
her fears rolled away from her heart like the stone from the mouth of a
sepulcher. If her husband had looked for her return, he must have missed
her, regretted her, needed her, just a little. His disposition was
sweet, even if it were thoughtless, and he might not meet her with
reproaches after all. There might not be the cold greeting she had often
feared--"_Well, you've concluded to come back, have you_? _It was about
time_!" If only John were a little penitent, a little anxious to meet
her on some common ground, she felt her task would be an easier one.

"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