Of course we read aunt Lindsay's letter aloud,--that and talking them over is the best part of receiving letters,--and of course we all got very much excited over our unexpected good fortune. Felix said right away that he would give Nora lessons in drawing two afternoons in the week,--she really draws very nicely, and is so anxious to get on,--provided she'd promise not to "put on any airs or frills;" and I told Fee I'd help him--in the same way--with his violin playing. Then Phil proposed, and the whole family approved, that we should on the following evening--which was papa's night at the Archæological Society--celebrate the happy event by what we call "a musical performance."
Though we are very fond of these "performances," we have not had one for quite a while, because some of us older ones haven't felt up to it; for, as Fee truly says, "it really requires very good spirits indeed to make a festive occasion go off successfully." Since that day in papa's study that Jack has told about, nothing more has been said of Fee's going to college,--though we all want it just as much as ever, and Jack and I feel that it _will_ come,--and Felix himself seems to have quite given up the idea.
He laughs and jokes again in his old merry way, particularly when Phil is at home; Nora and he have made friends, and Betty and Jack have got over staring at Fee with big round eyes of sympathy, and dear old Phil no longer skulks in and out of the house as if he were ashamed of himself; now he tells us bits of his college experience, and--as of old--gets Felix to help him with his studies. Things look as if everybody was satisfied; but, though he never alludes to it, I know Fee's heart is sore over his disappointment,--you see, he is my own twin, and, while I love all my brothers and sisters, Felix is more dear to me than any one else in the whole wide world, and I understand him better than anybody else does.
Fee is not like the rest of us; in the first place, he is more delicate, and his lameness makes him very sensitive. Then, too, though we all, from Phil to Alan, confide in him our troubles and pleasures, he rarely, if ever, opens his heart to any of us. And when we talk things over among ourselves, and so in a way help one another along, Fee keeps his deepest feelings to himself. Very often we children talk of dear mamma, particularly when we're together in the firelight Sunday afternoons and evenings,--it's a comfort to us; but Felix simply listens,--he never speaks of her, though he was mother's boy. But I know, all the same, that he misses her every day of his life, and that as long as he lives he'll never forget one tone of her voice, or one word she has said to him.