But, when she came down at the appointed time, she found Carol sitting excitedly in the back seat with Elizabeth, fairly bursting with the double pleasure of the ride and of surprising her sister.
"They came to the school for me, and took me home; and I explained to mother that I was going with you to look at a place we were going to move to. I put on the potatoes, and put the meat in the oven, and mother is going to tell George just what to do to finish supper when he gets home," she exclaimed eagerly. "And, oh, isn't it lovely?"
"Indeed it is lovely," said Shirley, her face flushing with pleasure and her eyes speaking gratitude to the young man in the front seat who was opening the door for her to step in beside him.
That was a wonderful ride.
The spring had made tremendous advances in her work during the ten days since they went that way before. The flush of green that the willows had worn had become a soft, bright feather of foliage, and the maples had sent out crimson tassels to offset them. Down in the meadows and along the roadside the grass was thick and green, and the bare brown fields had disappeared. Little brooks sang tinklingly as they glided under bridges, and the birds darted here and there in busy, noisy pairs. Frail wavering blossoms starred the swampy places, and the air was sweet with scents of living things.
But, when they came in sight of the barn, Elizabeth and her brother grew silent from sheer desire to talk and not act as if there was anything different about it. Now that they had actually brought Shirley here, the new windows seemed fairly to flaunt themselves in their shining mossy paint and their vast extent of diamond panes, so that the two conspirators were deeply embarrassed, and dared not face what they had done.
It was Carol who broke the silence that had come upon them all.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" she shouted. "Shirley, just look! New, great big windows! Isn't that great? Now you needn't worry whether it will be dark for mother days when she can't go out! Isn't that the best ever?"
But Shirley looked, and her cheeks grew pink as her eyes grew starry. She opened her lips to speak, and then closed them again, for the words would not come, and the tears came instead; but she drove them back, and then managed to say: "Oh, Mr. Graham! Oh, you have gone to so much trouble!"
"No, no trouble at all," said he almost crossly; for he had wanted her not to notice those windows, at least not yet.