“I don’t believe my mother would care,” said Lottie, honestly, as she laid her Bible in its place upon her book-shelf.
“But your mother is different,” pleaded Judith.
“Yes, my mother is well; I suppose that makes the difference.”
With a sigh over her disappointment, for, somehow, she thought the Bible could not be wrong, Judith went back to pad and pencil and another hard example in square root.
“Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home,” chanted Don’s voice in the hall below.
“He has a different name for you every time,” said Lottie. “Don’t tell your mother if it will worry her.”
“I never tell her things that worry her,” replied Judith; “I’ve been waiting three months to tell her that I have burnt a hole in the front of my red cashmere and do not know how to mend it. When I go to Sunday-school she sees me with my coat on, and after Sunday-school I hurry and put on a white apron.”
With her arithmetic and pad, and a very grave face, Judith hastened down stairs.
“Your mother is full of hope about Bensalem,” comforted cousin Don; “I have said good-bye, for I expect to sail for Genoa on Saturday. She gave me your photograph to take with me. I will write to you at Bensalem; and if anybody ever hurts you, write to me quick and I’ll come home and slay them with my little hatchet.”
“Are you going—so soon?” she asked, in an unchildish way; “what will mother do without you?”
“She will have you and Aunt Affy. I wasn’t going so soon, but I found it is better. Kiss your cousin Don.”
“Long enough to go to London to buy me a wife,” he laughed; “kiss your cousin Don.”
She kissed her cousin Don with eyes so filled with tears that she did not see the tears in his eyes. The street door fastened itself behind him; in the quiet street she heard his quick step on the pavement.
Her mother was sitting in the firelight with her head resting upon her hand.
“Mother, Don’s _gone_,” burst out Judith.
“Yes, for a while. He will never forget his little cousin.”
“Only a few days’ travel. It is good for him to go. He is engaged to do some work on a paper, and he has always desired to see the world afoot. It is good for him,” Don’s Aunt Hilda repeated.
“I hope it is not bad for us.—But I would be glad for him not to go—just yet,” she sighed.