"You are not perfect, sweetheart, but I don't believe you are as naughty as Cousin Ellen would have us think."
In a few days they started for home, a merry party, Eleanor, her father and mother, Florence, Rock and Bubbles. As they came near the house Eleanor glanced up at the window where poor Ada had hung so helplessly. She looked over at the little playhouse, then she turned to Rock. "Oh, Rock," she said, "I am so glad you are not Don."
Sylvy, smiling and neat, met them at the door, and before twenty-four hours all was as it had been before Cousin Ellen had come. Yet, it took Eleanor a little while to adjust herself to the belief that there were no hard words nor cold looks to greet her, and once or twice she cried out in the night so pitifully as to bring her mother to her side to awaken her from a nightmare in which she said she thought Cousin Ellen was holding her while Don stuck pins in her.
One of the first visitors was Dr. Sullivan, who greeted Eleanor with: "Heigho, little girl! back again? Plenty of fresh air, remember. Another patient is this, Miss Florence? A comrade in misery. Well, keep out of doors all you can."
And then came Miss Reese for sympathy, as she said, and she seemed so glad to see Eleanor that the child felt that here was one person, at least, who believed in her. "I'm so glad you can come and teach us, Miss Reese," she told her. "I think it will be a dear little school. We are to study in the library, mamma says, and I think it will be great fun."
Mrs. Dallas had just come in from a walk. "What do you think, daughter? Cousin Ellen wants to know if I will let Don and Olive and Jessie join our little class."
Eleanor looked horror-stricken and her mother laughed as she asked, "What did you say, mamma?"
"I said no, and I said it very emphatically. Cousin Ellen says the three older children have had the whooping-cough and she fears it for none of them but Alma. I said: 'I do not think the arrangement would be at all a satisfactory one, Cousin Ellen, and we will not consider it.'"
Just here Bubbles came in saying: "Miss Dimple, Mr. Snyder out hyah."
"Oh!" Eleanor jumped up. "Please 'scuse me, Miss Reese, I must see my dear butterman. Come, Florence, come, Rock." And she ran out to greet her old friend, who shook both her hands and said: "Mrs. Snyder heard you was comin' home and she wants to know if you won't come out some day with your cousins and the little colored girl. Some Saturday. If you take the electric cars to Brookside it will be just a little walk across the fields. Mrs. Snyder wants to hear all about what has been happening and I've got a little colt to show you; one of the finest in the land. Come next Saturday, if it ain't too cold," he said as he drove away.