ty?" she asked, excitement in her tone.

"No, no; but your father has come home."

"Only father! what does that matter?" Agnes lolled on to the sofa and
crossed her legs. "I want to read over my lecture for the High School. I
can't be bothered to change my dress!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, Aggie, go at once when mother wishes you," said Effie. "Go and put
on your Sunday frock, and tell Katie to do the same, and ask Susan to
put the younger children into their white dresses. Go at once; mother
wishes it."

Agnes flung herself out of the room, muttering.

Effie looked again at her mother.

She did not notice her, she was smiling softly to herself, and looking
out at the garden. Effie felt her heart sink lower and lower.

She went gravely upstairs, put on her blue dress, brushed out her bright
dark hair, and, looking her sweetest and freshest, came downstairs
again. Mrs. Staunton was still sitting by the window. Her cheeks were
flushed, her eyes were unusually bright. She looked twenty years younger
than she had done two hours ago--she looked beautiful. The soul seemed
to shine out of her face. When Effie came in, she stood up restlessly
and looked at the supper table.

"Yes," she said, "it is just as he likes it--the fragrant coffee, the
raspberry tart and the jug of cream, the new-laid eggs, the brown loaf
and the fresh butter. A simple sort of meal--yes, quite simple and very
wholesome. Very homelike, that's the word. Effie, there never was such a
homelike sort of man as your father. Give him home and you fill his
heart. This supper table is just what he will like best. He does not
care for new-fangled things. He is old-fashioned--he is the best of men,
Effie, the best of men."

"He will be glad to see you in your nice dress, mother--he is so proud
of you--he thinks you are so lovely."

"So I am in his eyes," said Mrs. Staunton in a wistful voice. "I am
old-fashioned like himself, and this dress is old-fashioned too. It was
a pretty dress when it was made up. Let me see, that was twelve years
ago--we went to Margate for a week, and he bought me the dress. He took
great pains in choosing the exact shade of gray; he wanted it to be
silver gray--he said his mother used to wear silver gray when she sat in
the porch on summer evenings. Yes, this dress is like a piece of old
lavender--it reminds me of the past, of the sunny, happy past. I have
had such a happy life, Effie--never a cross word said, never a dour look
gi