A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays

"Do you think Dorothy is conceited and selfish?"

"I don't think she means to be, but when she wants to deprive you of good times with other girls, or is jealous of your friendship for them, she is encouraging conceit and selfishness. I'm glad you asked me about the way I feel toward Agnes, for it makes me see that I am by no means the true friend I ought to be. If I loved her as I should, I'd want her to have all the good times, all the love, all the benefit she could get from others, and I mean to fight against any other feeling but the right one. I don't believe my little sister will be the jealous kind," she said hugging Edna up.

"If you see me getting that way, I hope you won't let me," returned Edna earnestly.

"There's Dorothy now," said Celia, putting down the plump little figure from her lap. And Edna ran out to greet her friend.

There was so much to talk about, so many things to show, that Dorothy must needs stay to lunch. A little later, over came Margaret McDonald to say "How do you do" and to bring some flowers from her mother's greenhouse. Edna's tongue ran so fast and she had so much to tell that the afternoon seemed all too short. Dorothy and Margaret, too, had their own affairs to talk about, and it was dark before the two little visitors were ready to go.

The next excitement was the coming of her father, for whom Dorothy watched and who appeared almost gladder than anyone that his wife and little girl were at home again. "This is something like," he said as he came in, his face wreathed in smiles.

"You poor dear," said Edna, in a motherly way, "it has been a lonely time for you, hasn't it?"

"Pretty lonely, but then it teaches me how to appreciate my family when they get back. My, my, my, what a difference it does make, to be sure. I don't think I can stand you all skylarking off again very soon."

It was all very cozy and natural after dinner to be back again in the library, Mrs. Conway on one side the table with her fancy work, Mr. Conway on the other with the evening paper, the boys reading, or scrapping in the hall, Celia in the next room at the piano, and Edna herself with the Children's Page of the paper spread out before her where she lay at full length on the big rug before the fire. Somehow the page of stories and puzzles did not absorb her as much as usual. She wondered what Reliance was doing, if her grandmother felt lonely without her little granddaughter, and if the white kitten missed her. She saw the long street bordered by maples, the store and the postoffice, the white church. Presently she got up and went over to her mother. "Wouldn't it be nice," she said, "if one could be in two places at the same time?"

Her mother nodded. "I shouldn't wonder if you and I were in two places at the same time, or that we had been during the last few minutes, for I am sure while our bodies are here our thoughts have been in Overlea."

"That is just where my thoughts have been," answered Edna. "Do you suppose they miss us, mother?"

"I am afraid they do, very much," said her mother, with a soft, little sigh. "I know if either of my daughters ever goes away to a home of her own, I shall miss her very much when she has left me after making a visit."

Edna stood with her arm still around her mother's neck. This was rather a new thought. Once her mother had been a little girl like her, of course, and had stood by her mother's side just like this, and now she was living in quite a different home. Edna tried to imagine how it would seem to come back to this, her childhood's home, from one of her very own, but it was entirely too difficult a matter so she gave it up and went back to her paper. But in a few minutes, the pictures on the page before her became pictures of Overlea. She was taking the spring-house key to old Nathan Keener that he might unlock his door and let out the white kitten. Then she was half conscious of hearing a voice say: "No, never mind; she is all tired out; I'll carry her up." Then she was helped to her feet, a pair of strong arms lifted her up, and she was borne up the stairs. She hardly knew who undressed her and stowed her away in bed. She felt a soft kiss on her cheek and then she sank into a deep slumber. The dear little girl's Thanksgiving holidays were over.