Suddenly, as they thought, strong young arms encircled her, and held her close in a dear embrace.
"Then you're ours, Cloudy, all ours, for the rest of down here, aren't you?" half whispered Leslie.
"Yes, dear, as long as you need me--want me," she finished.
"We shall want you always, Cloudy!" said Allison in a clear man's voice of decision. "Put that down forever, Cloudy Jewel. You are our mother from now on and we want you always."
"That is dear," said Julia Cloud; "but"--a resignation in her voice--"some day you will marry, and then you will not need me any more and I shall find something to do somewhere."
Two fierce young things rose up in arms at once.
"Put that right out of your head, Cloudy Jewel!" cried Leslie. "You shan't say it again! If I thought any man could be mean enough not to feel as I do about you, I would never marry him; so there! I would never marry anybody!"
"My wife will love you as much as I do!" said Allison with conviction. "I shall never love anybody that doesn't. You'll see!"
And so with loving arms about her and tender words of fierce assertion they convinced her at last, and the bond that held them was only strengthened by the little tension it had sustained.
Professor Armitage came no more to the little pink-and-white house; but Julia Cloud was happy with her children, and they were content together. The happy days moved on.
"I don't see how you get time for that Christian Endeavor Society of yours, Cloud," said one of the professors to Allison. "I hear you're the moving spirit in it; yet you never fall down on your class work. How do you manage it? I'd like to put some of my other students onto your ways of planning."
"Well, there's all of Sunday, you know, professor," answered Allison promptly. "I don't give so very much more time, except a half-hour here and there to a committee meeting, or now and then a social on Friday night, when I'd otherwise be fooling, anyway. My sister and I cut out the dances, and put these social parties in their place."
"But don't you have to study on Sundays?"
"Never do!" was the quick reply. "Made it a rule when I started in here at this college, and haven't broken it once, not even for examinations. I find I'm fresher for my work Monday morning when I make the Sabbath real."