Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/242

222 miserable for people who were chilly, aren’t we?” Mary arose as she spoke and went toward the door to let Abbie know that the hour for sherbet had struck. She laid her hand, with a caressing touch that suggested a benediction, on her mother’s head as she passed her.

“Happy, little Lynette-madrina?” she asked, without pausing for an answer.

Mark stirred in his chair and turned his eyes upon the fire to hide from the others the look that he was himself conscious had sprung into them as he had watched Mary’s betrayal of her sweetness; to hide also the moisture that often rose to them when this happy Garden family reminded him that, though his days were now filled with friendly affection, he had no one whom he might claim his own.

The Vineclad girls, when they heard of the Garden of Dreams, were ready to give the Gardens, mother and daughters, the adulation which grateful children pay—or should pay—to fairy godmothers, who turn the pumpkins of this work-a-day world into chariots, and make the most secret longings of youthful hearts come true. Never before had it befallen them to impersonate the heroines of romance, clad in picturesque garments, trailed