“And poor Joe too,” said Beth.

“There comes Mr. Smithers now,” exclaimed Bobby.

“Yes an’ I ain’t got your puppies either, for when I got home I found my boy had sold two and given away two, so there wasn’t any left but what we wanted to keep.”

“Well, I’m thankful,” said Ethelwyn; “for we bought a baby instead, only its mother took it back, and we just had to use the rest of the money for something else.  Thank you, Mr. Smithers.”

“You’re entirely welcome,” responded he.

CHAPTER XIX Bobby’s Grandfather

    And now let’s be glad,
      While everything’s bright. 
    Days that are sunny
      Are shadowed by night.

That evening there was considerable news to tell mother when she came from town, and she both laughed and lectured them a little over the baby episode.  After the children told her what Bobby had said about his grandfather losing money, they asked anxiously, “Oh mother, did he lose anything of ours?”

For the first time in a long while the two straight worry lines came back between mother’s eyes, and the children immediately climbed in her lap to kiss them away.

“I can’t tell yet, dearest ones,” she said after a while.  “I have been very foolish to leave so much of our money in one bank, I am afraid, but I had such faith, too much, perhaps, and I fear—­”

It was very comforting to have their dear warm cheeks against her own, and courage, almost vanquished during this trying day, came back.  After awhile she laughed with them again, and told them stories until bedtime, promising them also that Joe’s sister would be sent to the Home as soon as she was able.

The next morning, however, the lines came back, and the children, seeing them, resolved that they would write Bobby’s grandfather a letter.

“If there’s anything I’m glad of, it’s that I know how to write,” said Ethelwyn.  “It was very hard to learn.”

They went up-stairs to the nursery where their own small desks were and taking some of their beloved Kate Green a way paper with pictures of quaint little children on it, after much trouble, ink, and many sheets of paper, as well as consultations with Bobby and Nan, they finished and posted a very small envelope to Bobby’s grandfather, whose address they obtained from Bobby.

Bobby’s grandfather, on coming down the next morning to the bank, found this communication among the official-looking matter on the desk.  The picture in the corner of the envelope was surrounded by these words: 

    “Little Fanny wears a hat,
      Like her ancient granny;
    Tommy’s hoop was—­think of that—­
      Given him by Fanny.”

The poke-bonneted pair with Tommy and his hoop looked curiously out of place among their official surroundings.

The lines of worry were thickly sown in the banker’s face, and as there were no round, rosy-cheeked children in his silent home to kiss them away, they stayed and grew deeper each day.  He half smiled, however, as he picked up the Greenaway envelope and curiously broke the seal.  This is what he read: