Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/217

Rh She ran across the brown grass and caught Kirk into her arms—tin pan, bean-pods, and all. She kissed his mouth, and his hair, and his eyes, and murmured ecstatically to him.

"Mother! Mother!" Kirk cried, his hands everywhere at once; and then, "Phil! Quick!"

But Phil was there. When the Sturgis family, breathless, at last sorted themselves out, every one began talking at once.

"Don't you really think it's a nice place?"

"You came sooner than we expected; we meant to be at the gate."

"Oh, my dear dears!"

"Mother, come in now and see everything!" (This from Kirk, anxious to exhibit what he himself had never seen.)

"Come and take your things off—oh, you do look so well, dear."

"Look at the nice view!"

"Don't you think it looks like a real house, even if we did get it?"

"Oh, children dear! let me gather my poor scattered wits."

So Mrs. Sturgis was lovingly pulled and pushed and steered into the dusky little living-room, where a few pieces of Westover Street