Welcome Home

"Great news, my dears, great news!" cried Madame Bernard, gaily waving an open letter as she came into the room where Rose was sewing and Isabel experimenting with a new coiffure. "I'll give you three guesses!"

"Somebody coming for a visit?" asked Isabel.

"Wrong!"

"Somebody coming, but not for a visit?" queried Rose.

"You're getting warmer."

"How can anybody come, if not for a visit?" inquired Isabel, mildly perplexed. "That is, unless it's a messenger?"

"The old Kent house is to be opened," said Madame, "and we're to open it. At last we shall have neighbours!"

"How exciting," Rose answered. She did not wholly share the old lady's pleasure, and wondered with a guilty consciousness of the long hours she spent at her music, whether Aunt Francesca had been lonely.

"Listen, girls!" Madame's cheeks were pink with excitement as she sat down with the letter, which had been written in Paris.

"MY DEAR MADAME FRANCESCA: "'At last we are coming home--Allison and I. The boy has a fancy to see Spring come again on his native heath, so we shall sail earlier than we had otherwise planned.

"'I wonder, my dear friend, if I dare ask you to open the house for us? I am so tired of hotels that I want to go straight back. You have the keys and if you will engage the proper number of servants and see that the place is made habitable, I shall be more than ever your debtor. I will cable you when we start.