The little parlor was quite inconveniently crowded, but that afforded subject for mirth, as Mary introduced her friends and bustled about trying to find seats for them all. "We shall have to take dinner in relays or else set a table in here, besides the one in the dining-room," she said, laughing. "Let Amy and me go to our room and dress while your first set eat, and give us our dinner afterwards," suggested Ella Neff. "Yes, I should much prefer it," Miss Fletcher said, "for we are really too dusty and dirty to sit down to your table now." "And I shall act as waiter to the first table and eat with these ladies at the second," said Charlie. "Very well, I can manage to seat the rest," Mary said; and so it was arranged. The dinner proved very nice and very abundant with the help of the contents of the hamper. Mary's cooking received many praises, in which Charlie claimed a share, because, as he said, he had assisted largely. CHAPTER XXII. "O spirits gay, and kindly heart! Precious the blessings ye impart!" --_Joanna Baillie._ "Well, cricket, are we to carry you back with us?" Mr. Dinsmore asked, with a smiling look at Violet. "If so, 'tis time to be tying on your hat, for the carriage is at the door." "No, grandpa, I am going to stay," she answered, holding up her face for a parting kiss. "I am well satisfied with your decision, dear child," her mother said when bidding her good-bye, as they and Edward stood alone together for a moment on the little porch. "I think these young people are all safe associates for you and your brother," turning to him and taking a hand of each, "and that you will enjoy yourselves very much with them. But, my darlings, never forget in the midst of your mirth and gayety--or in trouble, if that should come--that God's eye is upon you, and that you have a Christian character to maintain before men. Let me give you a parting text, 'Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' And yet another for your joy and comfort, 'The Lord God is a sun and shields the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.'" "Was there ever such another dear, good mother as ours?" Violet said to her brother, as together they watched the carriage out of sight. "I wish there were thousands like her," he answered. "Ever since I can remember it has been plain to me that what she most desired for all her children was that they might be real, true, earnest Christians. Vi, if we are not all that, we can never lay the blame at our mother's door." "Nor papa's either," Violet said with a sigh and a tear to his memory, "for he was just as careful as she is to train us up for God and heaven." "Yes," Edward assented with emotion. "O Vi, if I could but be the man he was!" They went into the house. In the little parlor Amy Fletcher reclined on a sofa gazing out through the open door upon the sea.