CHAPTER XX

GOOD-BY

One morning at the close of the visit Mrs. Page sent for Janet to come to her. When she was seated in the chair by the bed, the old lady looked at her for a long time before she said anything. When she did speak, it was to ask a startling question.

"Janet, do you love me?" she inquired shortly.

Janet stared at her in surprise.

"Well, do you or don't you?" Mrs. Page demanded.

"Why, grandmother, of course I do," Janet replied quickly.

"Why?"

"Because you have always been kind to me and taken care of me, I suppose," Janet said doubtfully.

"Is that the only reason?"

"N-no, I love you because you are my grandmother."

"Do you love me as much as you do your Aunt Marjorie?"

"Of course, but--"

"But what!"

"In a different way."

"What do you mean by different way?"

"Why, I hardly know how to put it into words,"--Janet hesitated. "I love to be with Auntie Mogs and I like to have her put her arm around me and kiss me."

"I see," Mrs. Page spoke dryly, and laughed a short unpleasant laugh.

"And you love me for the opposite reasons, eh!" she inquired.

"I don't think they are opposite reasons," Janet replied. "I love you--well, respectfully, and I like to think of your being here. I think perhaps I'm proud that you are my grandmother."

Mrs. Page seemed to think over what she had heard.

"Well, it may surprise you to hear it," she said at last, "but I love you. I love you very dearly. I have been a very selfish old woman and perhaps I have not been very gentle with you. Tom says I haven't. Certainly I have never kissed you and put my arm around you, but I have always loved you. I want you to remember that. You have always been very patient with me too, and I realize it. Sometimes I've wished you would lose your temper, but now I'm glad you didn't. Phyllis is more like her father than you are, but I suppose that serves me right. I thought that I could love her the first day I saw her. I do love her, but not as much as I love you. You are the finer of the two and some day you'll prove it."

She turned over and faced the wall Janet rose to go.

"When I die,"--Mrs. Page spoke from the depth of the pillow--"I am going to leave everything I have to you. I am telling you this because you are going away, not because I think I am going to die. Now you may go."

Janet left the room, a queer feeling of regret in her heart. She wanted to take her grandmother in her arms and kiss her as she knew Phyllis would have done, but a restraint, born from the custom of years, held her back, and she closed the door behind her, softly, as she had always done.

Phyllis was nowhere to be found, so Janet went up to the "widow's walk" to think over what her grandmother had said. She found Tom already there, smoking his pipe and reading.

"Hello, what did grandmother want?" he inquired lazily. "You were with her an awfully long time. Phyllis got tired of waiting for you and went off for a walk with Harry Waters."

"Tom,"--Janet spoke very seriously, and Tom put down his book to listen--"when I go to the city with Phyllis and Auntie Mogs may I come back and see grandmother whenever I want to?"

"Why, certainly you may; what makes you ask?" Tom replied.

"Because I think grandmother is sorry I am going; really sorry, I mean, not just angry; and I think I ought to come back and see her every once in a while," Janet told him.

"Bless your heart, I think you are right. Auntie Mogs and I were talking about the same thing only last night, and she said you could all come up whenever she wanted you." Tom pulled her down beside him and rumpled her hair. "Now are you satisfied?" he asked, laughing.

Janet nodded.

"Tell me all over again just what the plans are!" she said as she settled herself comfortably.

"I should think you would know them all by heart,"--Tom laughed. "First of all you and Phyllis will have to be separated for a few days. I don't see how you will ever bear it, but you must try. Then Auntie Mogs and Phyllis will go down to the city and get ready for your arrival. To hear Phyllis talk you would think that the walls of your room were going to be hung in gold and that no one could see to it but herself.

"But to resume. As soon as everything is ready for your ladyship I will take you down. I can picture your excitement now when you see Auntie Mogs' library, and when you are comfortably settled I will take a train West and start in rebuilding my modest shanty so that it will be ready to receive you in the spring."

Janet looked out over the water and tried to picture all Tom had said, but she gave it up.

"Do you know, Tommy," she said suddenly, "I made up my mind on this very spot to write you that letter. Doesn't it seem funny to think that we are sitting here now together?"

"It does," Tom agreed slowly, "the only pity is that you didn't write it before."

The remaining days passed rapidly, and the date set for the departure came all too soon.

"Of course it's only for a week," Phyllis said, as they stood on the station platform, "but I feel as though it were years."

"So do I," Janet replied sorrowfully. "I wish I could go home and sleep until Thursday."

"Make Tommy amuse you every minute, and don't you dare to forget me even for a half a second," Phyllis warned her. "Oh, dear, here comes the horrid old train! Kiss me again for good luck."

Janet kissed her, and then turned to her aunt.

"Good-by, Auntie Mogs," she said tearfully.

"You two babies!" Miss Carter looked down at the two doleful faces before her and laughed. "It's dreadful to be separated, especially when you are twins, isn't it? But try and brace up, both of you, and it will soon be over. Good-by for a little while, dearest child. Tommy, take good care of her, won't you?" she added, as she said good-by to him.

"The very best; and we'll be down in one short little week," he promised.

They boarded the train, and Janet insisted on waiting until the last puff of smoke curled up out of sight.

"It is going to be the longest week of my life," she said dismally.

The house without Phyllis was unbearable, and Janet rowed over to the Enchanted Kingdom to find consolation. She knew that the workmen would be in possession the next day, and she wanted to have it all to herself once more.

She patted the books and said good-by to all her favorites. As she knelt to read the title of one of them she noticed the volume that she had found Peter reading their last memorable day together. She took it from its shelf and opened it idly. Pictures of sheep and diagrams of gates and fences did not interest her very much, and she was just about to close it up when she had a sudden idea.

She turned to the back of it, tore out a page that had nothing on it, and with Peter's own pencil, which she found on the floor under the sofa, she started to write.

When she had finished her note read as follows:

"_Dear Peter:_

"I am saying good-by to the Enchanted Kingdom, for I am going away next week. Of course I will write you letters to boarding school, but I wanted to leave this for you to find the first time you come back.

"We had lots of good times together, didn't we? I suppose the next time we see each other we won't want to pretend, so this is a last good-by to Lord Carrot Tops from

"THE PRINCESS OF THE ENCHANTED KINGDOM."

When it was written, she folded it up and stuck it between the leaves of the sheep book. Then she stood up to go.

"Good-by, my wonderful Kingdom," she said. "I will always love you better than any room in the world." She tiptoed to the window and climbed out swiftly.

As she ran down the hill, her eyes smarted and she did not look back.