"Well, don't sit down on anything dirty at the wharf. I expect you will," returned Mrs. Forbes with a resigned sigh, as she proceeded to unfasten Jewel's tight, thick little braids.
"Just think what a short time we'll have to miss cousin Eloise," said the child. "Day before yesterday she went away, and now to-morrow my mother'll braid my hair." She gave an ecstatic sigh.
"If that's all you wanted your cousin Eloise for--to braid your hair--I guess I could get to do it as well as she did."
"Oh, I loved cousin Eloise for everything and I always shall love her," responded the child quickly. "I only meant I didn't have to trouble you long with my hair."
"Yes, indeed you do--just as _tight_. Do you remember how much it troubled you when I first came? and now it's so much different!"
"Yes, there are a whole lot of things that are much different," replied Mrs. Forbes. "How long do you suppose you'll be staying with us now, Jewel?"
The child's face grew sober. "I don't know, because I don't know how long father and mother can stay."
"You'll think about this room where you've lived so many weeks, when you get back to Chicago."
"Yes, I shall think about it lots of times," said the little girl. "I knew it would be a lovely visit at grandpa's, and it has been."
She glanced up in the mirror toward the housekeeper's face and saw that the woman's lips were working suspiciously and her eyes brimming over.
"You won't be lonely, will you, Mrs. Forbes?" she asked; "because grandpa says you want to live with Zeke in the barn this summer while he shuts up the house and goes off on his vacation."
"Oh, yes; it's all right, Jewel, only it just came over me that in a week, or perhaps sooner, you'll be gone."
"It's real kind of you to be glad to have me stay," said the child. "I try not to think about going away, because it does make me feel sorry every time. You know the soot blows all around in Chicago and we haven't any yard, and when I think about all the sky and trees here, and the ravine, beside grandpa and you and Zeke and Essex Maid--why I have to just say 'I _won't_ be sorry,' and then think about father and mother and Star and all the nice things! I think Star will like the park pretty well." Jewel looked into space thoughtfully, and then shook her head. "I'm sure the morning we go I shall have to say: 'Green pastures are before me' over and over."