Spring has come at last with Easter. Such a beautiful blue sky as we woke to this morning, such tender breaths of gusty air!

“It seems funny to be putting on one’s winter hat,” remarked Ernie, cheerfully, as she picked up her shabby gray beaver and shook out its matted pompon; while I sniffed suspiciously at my white gloves in the window, wondering if they really did whiff faintly of gasoline.

“Yes,” I admitted. “Hand me that whisk-broom, please. Everybody will be wearing new clothes but us to-day, and we haven’t got any. Do you care?”

“I should think myself pretty mean if I did,” returned Ernie, roundly. “Come on, Elizabeth. The bells are ringing. We have barely time to say good-bye to Bobs.”

The nursery windows were open. The sunshine fell in bright patches across Robin’s little white crib, where he lay among his pillows, literally embowered amid blossoming plants.

“See, Elizabeth,” he called. “Here’s another!—a crimson bramble rose. It hasn’t any card, ’cept just a happy Easter one. Mother can’t guess who sent it, so I think maybe it was Mrs. Bo-gardus! That makes five flowers, and two rabbits, and three chickens, and a little red prayer-book, all for me! Here’s a pansy for you and Ernie, please; ’cause you want to look pretty Easter day.”

“Thank you, honey,” we answered. And, though the stems were very short, we managed to pin Robin’s pansies into our coats.

“They are playing ‘Welcome, happy morning!’” said Ernestine, as the front door closed behind us, and the jubilant music of the chimes rang more clearly to our ears. “Oh, Elizabeth, we are happy, aren’t we?”

“Indeed we are, Ernie dear,” I returned. And then we had to hurry, since it was already late.

“See, there are Aunt Adelaide and Meta,” I cried, presently, as we neared the church porch. “They are going in just ahead of us. How stunningly they are gotten up! Meta’s suit is charming, and what a love of a hat!”

“But we look nice, too,” returned Ernie, with an irrepressible little skip, and a downward glance at the bright flower in her button-hole. “We can’t help it, Elizabeth,—because, we are so glad!”

The swelling notes of the organ, the youthful, soaring voices of the choristers, in exultant anthem and hymn, the collect, and short, strong sermon, seemed all a wonderful expression of our own inward thanksgiving and gratitude. Never before has an Easter service meant so much to me, and I know it was the same with Ernie.

Our shabby gloves met in sympathetic clasp. We squeezed one another’s hands, and thought of that other morning when we sat side by side on the dark attic stairs, waiting for news of Robin. Oh, to have made up one’s mind to renunciation, only to have one’s treasure given back double-fold! For we have great hopes of Bobsie now; Dr. Porter is more than satisfied with the progress he is making; and only listen,—there’s more good news to tell!

For after service Aunt Adelaide and Meta waited for us in the church-porch, and we walked a couple of blocks together.

“Geof is very anxious to see you, Ernie,” said Aunt Adelaide. “Can you manage to get around for a little visit this afternoon? Dr. Porter has given his permission.”

“Oh!” cried Ernie, with an ecstatic little prance. “May I truly come? That’s the one thing needed to make the day perfect!”

“Ask your mamma to come with you,” smiled Aunt Adelaide;—for the old breach seems really healed at last. Our mutual anxiety over Geof and Robin has brought us closer together than anything else could ever have done. “Tell her please that there is a little matter Uncle George and I want to talk over with her.”

“Yes; certainly I will,” returned Ernie; while Meta asked, with a glance at the posy in my button-hole:

“Did Robin get many flowers for Easter?”

“Indeed he did,” I returned; “a pot of pansies, a lily, a purple hyacinth, and a beautiful crimson rambler. It is one mass of bloom. It came just before church, and there was no card, so we have been guessing ever since.”

Meta nodded her head in a satisfied way. “He and Geof ought to have something pretty,” she said. “They have been sick so long, and it must be horrid to lie in bed with nothing but the wallpaper to look at. I think it’s rather nice to send Easter cards with Easter flowers, instead of your name, don’t you?”

Then we separated, and I thought no more of Meta’s remark; but this afternoon when Ernie stole on tiptoe into Geof’s room, the first thing she noticed, after the patient, of course, was a second crimson rambler rose, the exact duplicate of Robin’s.

“Where did it come from, Geof?” asked Ernie, hoping to clear up the mystery of Bobsie’s plant. “Was there any card?”

“Why, no,” answered Geof. His poor hands were those of a skeleton; his voice was a whisper; his eyes seemed the only living thing left. When Ernie looked at him, she wanted to kiss him and cry;—but that would not have been cheering, so she asked about the crimson rambler, instead.

“It came this morning, just before church. Meta brought it up. There wasn’t any visiting card, but there was this Easter affair with the moulting angel. I told Meta he’d make a big mistake if he tried to fly with those wings; and she didn’t seem to like it much, though she said, ‘I was undoubtedly an authority on the subject!’ It’s the first natural remark she’s made to me since I’ve been sick,” added Geof, with a weak little chuckle. “I,—I rather think I liked it.”

“Well,” says Ernie, in a burst of really unusual perspicacity, “I don’t wonder Meta didn’t enjoy your criticism! I’m willing to bet my hat (it’s the old one with the frozen pompon, you know) that she alone is responsible for the angel and the rose, too. Robin received duplicates this morning, just about the same time; only his angel has a drum instead of a trumpet, and from something Meta said to Elizabeth I am almost sure that she chose them!”

Geof’s pale cheeks flushed and he lay quiet for a moment. “I never suspected it,” he said, at last; “but I guess perhaps you’re right. Certainly Meta has been treating me pretty white, lately, and the mater, too. I,—I wouldn’t wonder a bit, Bunnie, if things were going to be different.”

Meantime mother, Aunt Adelaide, and Uncle George were holding an equally interesting conversation in the library downstairs.

It seems that Dr. Porter wants Geof to go away for a couple of weeks; and he also remarked, in an apparently casual aside (though we are tempted to suspect it was premeditated), that a change would be an excellent thing for Robin; but that he did not feel at liberty to prescribe it when he thought of the heavy expenses we had been under for the operation. The two remarks worked together in Aunt Adelaide’s mind,—as perhaps they were intended to do,—and the result is that she has asked mother to take Geof and Robin, too, to Atlantic City for a fortnight, with Maria to help care for them, and Uncle George to foot the bills. And mother did not hesitate to accept, since Aunt Adelaide stated quite frankly that the obligation will be mutual. She does not want to leave the city just at present, and she quite shrinks from the responsibility of overseeing Geoffrey’s convalescence. Could anything be more splendid!

Just think of our dear little Bobsie enjoying a holiday by the sea!—growing fat and rosy playing about on the beach, picking up clam-shells, and——

But that reminds me. I must interrupt my jubilations to tell of the sad end of Abraham Lincoln! Ernie and I have suspected for a couple of days past that all was not well in the little glass globe. Since Thursday, A.L. has refused to snatch at a straw, no matter how persistently he has been “tickled.” Yesterday “he opened his mouth,” as Bobsie explained, and he has not closed it since;—till, this afternoon, when I was talking to Robin about his little red prayer-book,—which I had just rescued from forming a tent for one of the white mice,—my olfactory organ began to misgive me.

“It isn’t like your other books, Bobsie dear,” I was explaining. “You must never use it to play with, or be careless of it. You may keep it under your pillow with your handkerchief, if you want; and when you are older and can understand better, you will find it full of the most comfortable words. Whatever your sorrow, you will always find something to help. But, bless me! What a smell! Where does it come from?”

“Abraham Lincoln,” answered Robin, in solemn accents.

“So it does!” I returned, sniffing suspiciously into the little globe. “This will never do, Bobs. He’s stark dead, child! I must take it down and throw it into the back-yard.”

“You shan’t!” howled Bobsie, in a sudden outburst of uncontrollable woe. “I ’spected maybe he was sick; so I gave him some of my medicine and a teaspoonful of beef tea! You mustn’t throw him into the back-yard, Elizabeth! He’s been too good, I tell you!”

“But what is to be done about it then, dear?” I asked; for such violence of anguish was unusual on the part of Robin. “We can’t keep him here any longer. You can see that for yourself.”

“Then let’s have a nice little funeral,” sniffed Robin, pathetically. “We’ll b-bury him beneath the crimson bramble rose, and you can read some of the com-comfortable words out of my little red prayer-book.”

“But, Bobsie,” I remonstrated; “prayer-books weren’t written about clams! I don’t think there is anything here.”

“You said I would always f-find something to c-comfort me,” sobbed Bobsie. “And now, when I need it most,—you won’t even look!”

What was to be done? Robin’s faith was really touching. I could not bear to disappoint him, if it could be helped.

“Well, honey,” I said, at last, “don’t cry any more. We will bury Abraham Lincoln under the crimson bramble rose. Come,—you shall dig the grave with this silver teaspoon, and then if there is anything about clams in the prayer-book, I’ll read it to you.”

So Abraham Lincoln was neatly interred; and as Robin patted down the earth with the bowl of his silver spoon, I began in a grave voice from the Benedicite:

“O ye Whales, and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord: praise Him, and magnify Him for ever.”

It was the best I could do, after a vain flutter of pages, and though a clam isn’t exactly the same as a whale, Robin was more than satisfied.

“What did I tell you?” he asked. “I knew there’d be something if only you would look! And I s’pose Abraham Lincoln moved, Elizabeth, when he came from the fishman’s at Christmas to this little globe.”

Later, when I told Ernie of the tragedy, she took it almost as seriously as Robin. “Of course we had to expect that he would die sometime,” she admitted, with a little sigh. “And I’m glad he waited till we had the crimson rambler under which to bury him. It must have been a great comfort to Bobsie! Abraham Lincoln was always such a tactful clam!”