HYLAND
done; the children were lying asleep, with their travelling things
ready to be slipped on for an early start.
Roger had a foreign appointment. They were not to be back in
America for some years. She had meant to go up to say good-by
to her aunts; but a mother of three children intends to do a great
many things that never get done. One thing she had done that
very day, and as she paused for a moment between the writing
of two notes that must be posted before she went to bed, she
said:
'Roger, you remember Rita Lash? Well, she and Cousin Nan go
up to the Adirondacks every autumn. They are clever girls, and I
have intrusted to them something I want done very much.'
'They are the girls to do it, then, every inch of them.'
'I know it, and they are going to.'
'Well?'
'Why, you see, Roger, that little room— '
'Oh— '
'Yes, I was a coward not to go myself, but I didn't find time,
because I hadn't the courage.'
'Oh! that was it, was it?'
'Yes, just that.They are going, and they will write us about it.'
'Want to bet?'
