"Fine," replied Eleanor.
"How should you like to take this boy, too?" asked Uncle Heath, putting his hand on Rock's shoulder. "I find that I have to take another long trip and I'd like to have Dora go with me, but we don't want to send Rock back to boarding-school again, since he had such a sorry experience the last time, but if you could take him in with your young folks it would relieve our minds, besides being a good thing for him, Miss Reese is a very competent teacher, I judge."
"She is an excellent teacher," his brother assured him. And the matter was considered settled.
"Does Cousin Ellen know you are coming home, mamma?" Eleanor asked.
"Yes, she knows, and she has taken a little house on the other side of town."
"Oh!" Eleanor's face was a sight to see, between her desire to seem pleased and her real feeling of disappointment.
Her mother hugged her tightly and said: "Never mind Cousin Ellen, now you have your mother."
Eleanor gave a great sigh of content and rested her head against her mother's arm. "Dearest mamma, the next time you go away I shall get into one of the trunks rather than be left behind. You don't know, you never will know, how horrid Cousin Ellen can be."
"Don't I? Perhaps I do. At all events, my darling, she will not be near enough to bother you."
"No, and now I am rather glad I am not to go back to school, for then I should have to see Olive all the time, and she does try to set the girls against me. Am I a very bad child, mamma?"