"I don't know much about them," answered Alan. "Katharine is the older one, about fifteen, and Jessie is just my age. Her birthday is the third and mine the seventh. I suppose they're well enough, but their pictures look a little toploftical, and I'm not over fond of that kind. They are going to bring their pony, if they come, and that will be fun, if mother will only let me ride him."
"You'll get your neck broken," predicted Polly. "Do you remember the day we tried to ride Job, and he lay down and rolled us off?"
"That was your fault," returned Alan; "if you hadn't gripped his mane so, he'd have been all right. Well," he added, sitting up and stretching himself, "mother sent me to the market, and I s'pose I must go, but I thought I'd just stop in a minute."
"Oh, dear! how I wish I had a brother!" sighed Polly, watching his boyish figure, as he sauntered away across the grass.
"Yes," said Jean slowly, as she thought of the four little brothers at home, "it is nice, but it has its drawbacks, Polly. When they all want to do the same thing at the same time, and can't wait a minute, why, then it doesn't seem quite so agreeable."
In the warm twilight, Mrs. Adams and Polly sat on the broad piazza. Miss Bean had taken her departure, long before, and Jean had gone home to help her mother get supper and put the younger children to bed. The birds were twittering their last sleepy good nights, and two or three little stars were faintly showing in the blue sky above the dark mountain, while scores of tiny fireflies were dotting the air below.
"There, Jerusalem!" Polly was saying triumphantly, as she perched herself on the broad arm of her mother's piazza chair; "now everybody is out of the way, and I can have you all to myself."
"What is it to-night?" inquired Mrs. Adams, laughing, as she pulled her light shawl over her shoulders to keep out the evening air.
"Lots of things, mamma," answered Polly, with a sudden thoughtfulness; "there's been a good deal to-day."
"About Molly's cousins, for instance?" asked Mrs. Adams.