"There isn't any on," said Alan. "All there is about it is that they want to come, and I'm afraid mother is going to let them. Molly likes it, but I don't want them round in the way. I know they'll be prim and fussy, without any fun in them. I believe I'll come over here and live."
"Come on," said Polly hospitably; then she proceeded in a moral tone, "But, Alan, you ought not to talk so about them, for they're your cousins, and you ought to like your relations, you know."
"Do you like Aunt Jane?" inquired Alan, suddenly rolling over to face her once more.
But Polly was spared the necessity of making any reply, by a sudden voice behind her.
"And so this is your garden, Mrs. Adams! It's a likely place for petunias and sweet williams, but I don't think much of those new- fangled things," pointing to a brilliant bed of dwarf nasturtiums near by. Then she went on in a sing-song tone,—
"'So I've come out to view the land
Where I must shortly lie.'"
"Needn't think I expect to lie in your garden, though," she hastily added, evidently fearful of being misunderstood.
"Hush, Alan! you must not laugh at her," said Polly, stifling her own merriment as best she could.
But Miss Bean, absorbed in her eloquence, had passed on out of hearing, and Jean returned to the charge.
"Come, Alan, there's a dear boy," she began persuasively, "tell us about the girls."