“Oh! mother, but you’re splendid!” cried Nancy, the quick tears in her eyes.  “Brace up, old Gilly, and show what the Careys can do without ‘advantages.’  Brace up, Kitty and Julia!  We three will make Beulah Academy ring next year!”

“And I don’t want you to look upon Beulah as a place of hiding while adversity lasts,” said Mother Carey.  “We must make it home; as beautiful and complete as we can afford.  One real home always makes others, I am sure of that!  We will ask Mr. Harmon to write Mr. Hamilton and see if he will promise to leave us undisturbed.  We cannot be happy, or prosperous, or useful, or successful, unless we can contrive to make the Yellow House a home.  The river is our river; the village is our village; the people are our neighbors; Beulah belongs to us and we belong to Beulah, don’t we, Peter?”

Mother Carey always turned to Peter with some nonsensical appeal when her heart was full and her voice a trifle unsteady.  You could bury your head in Peter’s little white sailor jacket just under his chin, at which he would dimple and gurgle and chuckle and wriggle, and when you withdrew your flushed face and presented it to the public gaze all the tears would have been wiped off on Peter.

So on this occasion did Mrs. Carey repeat, as she set Peter down, “Don’t we belong to Beulah, dear?”

“Yes, we does,” he lisped, “and I’m going to work myself, pretty soon bimebye just after a while, when I’m a little more grown up, and then I’ll buy the Yellow House quick.”

“So you shall, precious!” cried Kathleen.

“I was measured on Muddy this morning, wasn’t I, Muddy, and I was half way to her belt; and in Charlestown I was only a little farder up than her knees.  All the time I’m growing up she’s ungrowing down!  She’s smallering and I’m biggering.”

“Are you afraid your mother’ll be too small, sweet Pete?” asked Mrs. Carey.

“No!” this very stoutly.  “Danny Harmon’s mother’s more’n up to the mantelpiece and I’d hate to have my mother so far away!” said Peter as he embraced Mrs. Carey’s knees.

Julia had said little during this long conversation, though her mind was fairly bristling with objections and negatives and different points of view, but she was always more or less awed by her Aunt Margaret, and never dared defy her opinion.  She had a real admiration for her aunt’s beauty and dignity and radiant presence, though it is to be feared she cared less for the qualities of character that made her personality so luminous with charm for everybody.  She saw people look at her, listen to her, follow her with their eyes, comment on her appearance, her elegance, and her distinction, and all this impressed her deeply.  As to Cousin Ann’s present her most prominent feeling was that it would have been much better if that lady had followed her original plan of sending individual thirty-five-dollar checks.  In that event she, Julia, was quite certain that hers never would have gone into a water-pipe or a door-sill.