They had come! They had come before it was yet train-time!
Julia Cloud got herself to her front door in a tremor of delight, and instantly four strong young arms encircled her, and nearly smothered the life out of her.
"O you dear Cloudy Jewel! You look just the same. I knew you would. Only your hair is white and pretty," Leslie gurgled.
"Sure, she is just the same! What did I tell you?" cried Allison, lifting them both and carrying them inside.
"Now, who on earth can that be?" said Mrs. Ambrose Perkins, flying to her parlor window at the first sound of the automobile. "It isn't any of them folks from the city that were out to the funeral, for there wasn't a car like that there, I'm certain! I mean to run over and borrow a spoonful of soda pretty soon, just to find out. It couldn't be any of Tom's folks from out West, for they couldn't come all that way in a car. It must be some of her father's relations from over in Maryland, though I never heard they were that well off. A chauffeur in livery! The idea of all that style coming to see Julia Cloud!"
"No, we didn't come on the train," explained Leslie eagerly. "We came in Allison's new car. Mr. Luddington--that's our guardian--was coming East, and he said we might come with him. We've been dying to come for ages. And he'd been promising Allison he might get this new car; so we stopped in the city and bought it, and Allison drove it down. Of course Mr. Luddington made his man come along. He wouldn't let us come alone. He's gone up to Boston for three days; and, when he comes back, he's coming down here to see you."
Leslie was talking as fast as an express train, and Julia Cloud stood and admired her in wonder.
She was slim and delicately pretty as ever, with the same mop of goldy-brown curls, done up in a knot now and making her look quaintly like the little five-year-old on a hot day with her curls twisted on the top of her head for comfort. She wore a simple little straight frock of some dark silk stuff, with beaded pockets and marvellous pleats and belts and straps in unexpected places, such as one sees in fashion-books, but not on young girls in the town of Sterling; and her hat was a queer little cap with a knob of bright beads, wonderfully becoming, but quite different from anything that Julia Cloud had ever seen before. Her movements were darting and quick like a humming-bird's; and she wore long soft suède gloves and tiny high suède boots. The older woman watched her, fascinated.