Read Online Girl to Come Home To by Grace Livingston Hill - Free Book Online Page A

few months over a year and was once reported missing but was saved in some unusual way. Say, girls, let’s all go to our church next Sunday and give him a good send-off. Is he shy, Beryl? We won’t embarrass him, will we, and spoil his speech? We might hide in the Sunday School room where he wouldn’t see us.”
    Beryl smiled. “No, he isn’t shy.”
    “Well, girls, will you go? You will, won’t you, Beryl?”
    “Why, I might,” said Beryl. “I’ll see what plans Mother has. Perhaps I’ll go. But if I were you I wouldn’t hide. He wouldn’t mind your being there, I’m sure. He isn’t that kind.”
    “But say, girls,” said Isabelle thoughtfully, “wasn’t that brother Rodney the one who was engaged to some girl with bleached hair? Jessica. That was her name. And she sported around with his ring on and made a great fuss over being engaged, and then after he went away she got married to some rich old man? Wasn’t that Rodney Graeme’s girl?”
    “I’m sure I don’t know,” said Beryl Sanderson. “He always impressed me as a grave, quiet kind of man, the few times I ever saw him. The kind you would trust, you know.”
    “Oh,
that
kind. Well, a girl just looking for a good time wouldn’t stick by a fellow like that, of course,” said Alida. “Say, what’s this Jeremy like? Awfully religious? Because if he is, I won’t go Sunday. I don’t care much for religion anyway. It always makes me cry and wish I’d never been born.”
    “I really don’t know, Alida,” said Beryl almost haughtily. “I only knew him in high school, but he seemed very cheerful then.”
    “Why, he’ll likely just talk about the war I suppose,” said Isabelle. “They all do. I adore to hear the fellows tell about their experiences, how many enemies they killed and all that and how they just got off by the skin of their teeth.”
    “Isabelle! You bloodthirsty thing! How dreadful!” exclaimed Bonny.
    “Well, isn’t that the way we’re supposed to feel during this war? We’re out to get the enemy as quick as we can and finish them up so they can’t start anything again, not in our lifetime, anyway. Isn’t that the idea?” said Isabelle.
    “Well, anyway, girls you’ll all go, won’t you?” said Bonny Stewart. “I’ll get some credit up in heaven for bringing so many to church, won’t I? Come and meet at my house. It’s near the church, and I know my way around, you know. I’m supposed to be a member of that church. Meet at my house, and we’ll have a cup of tea and some little frosted cakes before we go over to the church. Beryl, why don’t you invite Jeremy Graeme to come over along with you, and we can all get acquainted with him?”
    “No,” said Beryl with dignity. “He wouldn’t want to go to a reception before he spoke, and anyway I wouldn’t do that sort of thing. I’ll be at church, I think, but I’m not sure I’ll be over at your place, Bonny, beforehand. Mother has company, and I may be needed at home until time for church to begin. I’ll look you all up if I can.”
    Then the noon whistle sounded and there was a general movement to put away work and go out to lunch. Beryl slipped away out of notice to think over what she had been hearing.
    So, Jeremy had been doing notable things in the war and was going to speak about them. It would be interesting, of course, and she was sure she would like to hear him. Yet she recognized in herself a certain shrinking from seeing him again lest the grown-up Jeremy might disappoint her. For he had been one of her childhood’s admirations, and she didn’t want to think that he had failed to turn out the kind of man his boyhood had promised. She did not like to think her little-girl ideas of people had been wrong. Somehow they made a happy young background for the childish self she had been.
    When Beryl reached home she went to her own room and sat down to think. Her mind was going back to her days at school and to the times when she was interested in