“Wait and see,” returned Adele with a wise shake of the head.
The tinkle of a little bell took them indoors to lessons again, and the next hour or two passed quickly, and to Jessie’s surprise very pleasantly. “It is much nicer than going to the Hill School,” she told her mother. “I know a whole lot of French and some of my notes on the piano. When I know them all am I going to have a piano, mother?”
“Not at present,” Mrs. Loomis told her. “You are to practice on Adele’s piano for a while. Pianos are rather expensive things and we shall have to save up a lot of eggs and butter before we can buy one.”
“Adele is richer than I am, isn’t she, mother?”
“In some things, perhaps, but she has no mother nor brothers.”
Jessie threw her arms around her mother’s neck and gave her a mighty hug. “And you are worth all the money in the world,” she said. “My two brothers are pretty far away, but I do see them sometimes, and that’s much better than not having any at all. Yes, I believe I am much richer than Adele. She hasn’t any pets either. Where is Eb, mother?”
“Oh, my dear, I don’t know. He is out-of-doors somewhere. We cannot have him in the house very often, for he gets into so much mischief.”
Jessie went out to find Eb, but not seeing him near, she concluded to go to Playmate Polly and tell her all about her morning at the yellow house, for Polly was always a good listener. It was rather pleasant, too, to feel free to do exactly as she liked after the restriction of a morning in the schoolroom.
She was sitting on a big rock talking quietly in an undertone to Polly, when with a whoop and a hallo two boys came vaulting over the fence and rushed toward her. For a moment Jessie was so startled that she could give only little shrieks, but these soon changed to a squeal of delight when she discovered the two intruders to be her brothers, Max and Walter. “Oh! oh!” she cried. “Where did you come from, and how do you happen to be home to-day?”
“Why, it is just a piece of luck for us,” said Max catching her up and kissing her. “One of the boys, Carl Potter, is ill with something, the doctor doesn’t know just what yet, and so he thought we boys had better come home for a few days till he finds out whether it is diphtheria or not. Of course I don’t mean it is luck for old Carl, but it gives us a holiday.”