Faith made the introductions and then helped Gladys and Ellen into the back seat of the wagon, all unconscious of her cousin's wonder at the absence of silver mountings and broadcloth cushions. Then Faith climbed over the wheel into the seat beside her brother, and the horse started. She turned about so as to talk more easily with her guest.

"What a beautiful doll!" she said admiringly.

"Yes," returned Gladys, "this is my birthday, you know."

"Oh, then, is it new? I thought it was! Hasn't she the prettiest clothes?

Have you named her yet?"

"Her name is Vera. Mother says it means true, or truth, or something like that."

Ernest turned half around to glance at the object of the girls' admiration; but he thought Gladys herself a much more attractive creature than the doll.

"I suppose your cousin Gladys can't ask you to admire her doll much, Master Ernest," said Ellen. She liked these rosy children at once, and the fresh, sunlit air that had painted their cheeks.

"Oh, it's pretty enough," returned Ernest, turning back and clucking to the horse.

Gladys enjoyed Faith's pleasure. She would not try to show off Vera's supreme accomplishment in this rattlety-banging wagon. How it did jounce over occasional stones in the country road!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I HEAR A SHEEP"]

Ellen smiled at her as the child took hold of her arm in fear of losing her balance. "That was a 'thank-ye-ma'am,'" she said, as the wagon suddenly bounded over a little hillock. "Didn't you see what a pretty curtsy we all made?"

But Gladys thought it was rather uncomfortable and that Ernest drove too fast, considering the state of the toads.

"This wagon has such nice springs," said Faith. She was eager to take Vera into her own hands, but no wonder Gladys liked to hold her when she had only had her such a short time.

Aunt Martha was standing on the piazza to welcome the company when they arrived. She was an elderly woman with spectacles, and it had to be explained to her, also, that Ellen was not Gladys's mother.

The maid was so well dressed in her quiet street suit that aunt Martha groaned in spirit at first at the prospect of caring for a fashionable city servant; and it was a relief when the stranger looked up and said pleasantly: "I'm just Ellen."

There was an hour left before dinner, and Faith and Ernest carried Gladys off to a place they called the grove. The farmhouse was painted in light yellow and white. It was built on a gra.s.sy slope, and at the foot of a gentle hill a pretty pond lay, and out from this flowed a brook. If one kept quite still he could hear the soft babble of the little stream even from the piazza. Nearer by was a large elm-tree, so wide-spreading that the pair of Baltimore orioles who hung their swaying nest on one limb scarcely had a bowing acquaintance with the robins who lived on the other side. The air was full of pleasant scents, and Gladys followed her hosts willingly, far to the right side of the house, where a stone wall divided the grounds from a piece of woodland. Her cousins bounded over the wall, and she tried to find a safe spot for her dainty, thin shoe, the large doll impeding her movements.

"Oh, let me take her!" cried Faith eagerly, seeing her cousin's predicament; and as she carefully lifted the beautiful Vera, she added: "Help Gladys over, Ernest."

Ernest was very unused to girls who had to be helped, and he was rather awkward in trying to give his cousin a.s.sistance, but as Gladys tetered on the unsteady stones, she grasped his strong shoulder and jumped down.

"Father and Ernest cleared this grove out for us," explained Faith. All the underbrush had been carried away and the straight, sweet-smelling pines rose from a carpet of dry needles. A hammock was swung between two trees.

It was used more by the children's mother than by them, as they were too active to care for it; but Gladys immediately ran toward it, her recovered doll in her arms, and seated herself in the netting. Her cousins regarded her admiringly as she sat there pushing herself with her dainty shoe-tips.

"I'll swing you," said Ernest, and running to her side began with such a will that Gladys cried out:--

"Oh, not so hard, not so hard!" and the boy dropped his hands, abashed.

Now, while they were both standing before her, was a good time for Gladys to give them her great surprise; so she put her hands about Vera's waist, and at once "Ma-ma--Pa-pa" sounded in the still grove.

Ernest p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. "I hear a sheep," he said, looking about.

Gladys flushed, but turning toward Faith for appreciation, she made the doll repeat her accomplishment.

"It's that dear Vera!" cried Faith, falling on her knees in the pine needles before Gladys. "Oh, make her do it again, Gladys, please do!"

Her visitor smiled and complied, pleased with her country cousin's delight.

"Think of a doll that can talk!" cried Faith.

"I think she bleats," laughed Ernest, and he mimicked Vera's staccato tones.

Faith laughed, too, but Gladys gave him a flash of her brown eyes.

"A boy doesn't know anything about dolls," said Faith. "I should think you'd be the happiest girl, Gladys!"

"I am," returned Gladys complacently. "What sort of a doll have you, Faith?"

"Rag, tag, and bobtail," laughed Ernest.

"Now you keep still," said his sister. "I'll show you my dolls when we go to dinner, Gladys. I don't play with them very much because Ernest doesn't like to, and now it's vacation we're together a lot, you know; but I just love them, and if you were going to stay longer we'd have a lot of fun."

Faith looked so bright as she spoke, Gladys wished she had brought something for her. She wasn't so sure about Ernest. He was a nice-looking, strong boy, but he had made fun of Vera. At present he was letting off some of his superfluous energy by climbing a tree.

"Look out for the pitch, Ernest," said his sister warningly. "See, Gladys, I have a horse out here," and Faith went to where the low-growing limb of a pine sprang flexibly as she leaped upon it into an imaginary side-saddle.

Gladys smiled at her languidly, as she bounded gayly up and down.

"I have a pony," returned Gladys, rocking gently in her swinging cradle.

"That must be splendid," said Faith. "Ernest rides our old Tom bareback around the pasture sometimes, but I can't."

Very soon the children were called to dinner, and wonderfully good it tasted to Gladys, who took note of cottage cheese, apple-b.u.t.ter, and doughnuts, and determined to order them at home the very next day.

As they were all rising from the table, a telegraph boy drove up in a buggy, and a telegram was handed to Ellen. Her face showed surprise as she read it, and she looked at aunt Martha.

"Could we stay here a few days?" she asked.

"What is it, Ellen?" demanded Gladys.

"Your father's friend wants him and your mother to take a trip with him, and your mother thinks you might like to stay here a while. I'm to answer, and she will send some clothes and things."

Aunt Martha had already learned to like good, sensible Ellen, and she replied cordially; so a telegram went back by the messenger boy, and Faith and Gladys both jumped up and down with pleasure at the prolonging of the visit. Ernest looked pleased, too. In spite of Gladys's rather languid, helpless ways, he admired her very much; so the children scampered away, being left this time on a chair in the parlor.

"Do you like turtles?" asked Faith of the guest.

"I don't know," returned Gladys.

"Didn't you ever see any?" asked Ernest in astonishment.

"I don't believe so."

"Then come on!" cried the boy, with a joyous whoop. "We'll go turtle-hunting."

Gladys skipped along with them until they reached the brook.