Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/285

 "Why, Cousin Kate, what a question! How could I help liking it? I never knew what happy meant, till I came to you," answered Cannie, flushed with emotion and pleasure. "It's only that it seems too good to be true! Why, only yesterday I was counting the days till the fifteenth of October; because, you know, you are going back to town then, and I thought you would send me back to Aunt Myra, and I said, 'I shall only be happy for twenty-four days more, perhaps only twenty-three,'—for, you see, I didn't feel sure that you could keep me till the very last day. And now there is going to be no end to the happy times. I can't see what makes you so good to me, Cousin Kate."

"I think we can understand that better than you can," her cousin replied. "We need you, Cannie, as much as you need us. The benefit will be mutual."

"Need me! when you have Cousin Court and the girls?"

"Cousin Court and the girls need you too.—Don't we, Georgie? Come in and