"I don't understand you. Why should not your
brother's classmate add to the pleasure of our Thanksgiving?"
"Well, perhaps if we had expected him, if he had come in some
other way, and we knew more about him--"
"Bless you, child, what a formalist you have become. You stand on
a fine point of etiquette, as if it were the broad foundation of
hospitality; while only last week you wanted a ragged tramp, who
had every appearance of being a thief, to stay all night. Your
brother thinks it a special providence that his friend should have
turned up so unexpectedly."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Elsie. "If that is what the doctrine of special
providence means, I shall need a new confession of faith." Then, a
sudden thought occurring to her, she vanished, while her mother
smiled, saying:
"What a queer child she is, to be sure!"
A moment later Elsie gave a sharp knock at the spare room door,
and in a second was in the further end of the dark hall. George
put his head out.
"Come here," she whispered. "Are you sure it's you?" she added,
holding him off at arm's-length.
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