Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/312

290 happy I am? I’m as pleased as if I’d found a lost treasure chest! I was not obliged to leave you, of course, and I didn’t come anywhere near going, but I feel as though I had escaped a great danger! My lassies, I want you to know, once for all, that I’d rather be your mother than anything else on earth. I’ve said that before, but do realize how true it is! And I love the old Garden house and the old Garden garden, and I’d be horribly jealous for you of any interest that would divide me. I want to be yours, entirely yours! I’ve found it’s the best thing in all the world to be a mother—even a toy-mother! Come, hug me!” Mrs. Garden held out her arms, laughing, but with the merry eyes that called to Mary and Jane, as well as to Florimel, shining through moisture on their lashes.

“Well, Lynette Garden! You bet we’ll hug you!” cried Florimel, and no one felt that the slangy response was blameworthy this time. There seemed to be need of vigorous expression.

The Garden girls crushed the little white-clad figure in a threefold, bearlike embrace. The day was won, their mother was won; the last uncertainty as to her loving them well enough to be happy with them, at the price of the loss of her old world of pleasures and admiration, was