There was Holland swinging on the gate, waiting for her to come home from school, and trying to tell her by excited gestures, long before she was within speaking distance, that some one was in the parlor.  The baby had on his best plaid kilt and new tie, and the tired little mother was sitting talking in the parlor, an unusual thing for her.  Joyce could see herself going up the path, swinging her sun-bonnet by the strings and taking hurried little bites of a big June apple in order to finish it before going into the house.  Now she was sitting on the sofa beside Cousin Kate, feeling very awkward and shy with her little brown fingers clasped in this stranger’s soft white hand.  She had heard that Cousin Kate was a very rich old maid, who had spent years abroad, studying music and languages, and she had expected to see a stout, homely woman with bushy eyebrows, like Miss Teckla Schaum, who played the church organ, and taught German in the High School.

But Cousin Kate was altogether unlike Miss Teckla.  She was tall and slender, she was young-looking and pretty, and there was a stylish air about her, from the waves of her soft golden brown hair to the bottom of her tailor-made gown, that was not often seen in this little Western village.

Joyce saw herself glancing admiringly at Cousin Kate, and then pulling down her dress as far as possible, painfully conscious that her shoes were untied, and white with dust.  The next picture was several days later.  She and Jack were playing mumble-peg outside under the window by the lilac-bushes, and the little mother was just inside the door, bending over a pile of photographs that Cousin Kate had dropped in her lap.  Cousin Kate was saying, “This beautiful old French villa is where I expect to spend the winter, Aunt Emily.  These are views of Tours, the town that lies across the river Loire from it, and these are some of the chateaux near by that I intend to visit.  They say the purest French in the world is spoken there.  I have prevailed on one of the dearest old ladies that ever lived to give me rooms with her.  She and her husband live all alone in this big country place, so I shall have to provide against loneliness by taking my company with me.  Will you let me have Joyce for a year?”

Jack and she stopped playing in sheer astonishment, while Cousin Kate went on to explain how many advantages she could give the little girl to whom she had taken such a strong fancy.

Looking through the lilac-bushes, Joyce could see her mother wipe her eyes and say, “It seems like pure providence, Kate, and I can’t stand in the child’s way.  She’ll have to support herself soon, and ought to be prepared for it; but she’s the oldest of the five, you know, and she has been like my right hand ever since her father died.  There’ll not be a minute while she is gone, that I shall not miss her and wish her back.  She’s the life and sunshine of the whole home.”

Then Joyce could see the little brown house turned all topsy-turvy in the whirl of preparation that followed, and the next thing, she was standing on the platform at the station, with her new steamer trunk beside her.  Half the town was there to bid her good-by.  In the excitement of finding herself a person of such importance she forgot how much she was leaving behind her, until looking up, she saw a tender, wistful smile on her mother’s face, sadder than any tears.