"
"Like visiting ministers and returned missionaries," Patience explained.
Hilary looked thoroughly bewildered. "But are you expecting company?
You must be," she glanced from one to another, "you're all dressed up,"
"We were expecting some, dear," her mother told her, "but she has
arrived."
"Don't you see? You're it!" Patience danced excitedly about her sister.
"I'm the company!" Hilary said wonderingly. Then her eyes lighted up.
"I understand! How perfectly dear of you all."
Mrs. Shaw patted the hand Hilary slipped into hers. "You have come
back a good deal better than you went, my dear. The change has done
you good."
"And it didn't turn out a stupid--half-way affair, after all," Hilary
declared. "I've had a lovely time. Only, I simply had to come home, I
felt somehow--that--that--"
"We were expecting company?" Pauline laughed. "And you wanted to be
here?"
"I reckon that was it," Hilary agreed. As she sat there, resting a
moment, before going up-stairs, she hardly seemed the same girl who had
gone away so reluctantly only eight days before. The change of scene,
the outdoor life, the new friendship, bringing with it new interests,
had worked wonders,
"And now," Pauline suggested, taking up her sister's valise, "perhaps
you would like to go up to your room--visitors generally do.
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