"I think I have to be proud of a dear, generous little girl whose loyalty caused an otherwise pleasant week to be spoiled."
Peachie’s cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled.
"It wasn’t quite spoiled, mother dear. Oh, honey, he is the handsomest man and the best dancer! Just wait till you see him!"
"DEAREST CAROLINA:--Great news! Three pieces of it. First, I have turned Christian Scientist! Second, Rosemary Goddard is married to the Honourable Lionel Spencer! Third, daddy is so tickled over all that you have done, as you may have suspected from his letters lately, that he is going down. He will take the car, and Noel and Mrs. Goddard, mother, and I are coming, too! Don’t bother about accommodations. We will switch the car to a siding and live in it. We may all have to go to Charleston and Jacksonville, so that you and Peachie and a handy man or two had better get ready for a rip-roaring old time, for we are going to make Rome howl. Noel wants to go to Ormond for the automobile races. He has entered his machine. I named it for him,--’The White Moth,’--don’t you think that’s a dandy name?
"Now to go back to the really important thing. I’ve wanted to be a Scientist ever since I found out that it wasn’t a drag-net to catch all the cranks in the world, as I at first supposed. I found that out in two ways. One, by knowing a lot of you who were not in the least cranks. The other, by seeing what a lot of cranks there are left! Yet all the time I was hating myself and struggling against the compelling influence. Did you ever drag a cat across the carpet by the tail? Well, that is just about the easy, gliding gait I used to reach Christian Science!
"Still, you’ll never guess who influenced me most. Not you nor that heavenly Mrs. Goddard nor the wonderful cures I’ve seen. Nuh! Guess again. Old Noel! Yes, sir. Old skeptical Noel! Brought up for a Catholic, too. Wouldn’t that freeze you? Well, think si to myself, think si, ’if old Noel can see good in it, and he’s the best all-round sport, man of the world, and gentleman I know, it’s time little Katie got aboard.’ So I just climbed on the raft without saying a word to anybody, expecting everybody to raise Cain, but, to my astonishment, daddy was as pleased as Punch, and he and mother go to church with me every Sunday. What do you say to that?
