Before she went to bed, Elliott, curled up on her window-seat, read Aunt Jessica’s letter. It was a good letter, a delightful letter, and more than that. If she had been older, she might, just from reading it, have seen why her father wanted her to go to Highboro. As it was, something tugged at her heartstrings for a moment, but only for a moment. Then she swung her foot over the edge of the window-seat and disposed of the situation, as she had always disposed of situations, to her liking. She had no notion that the Fates this time were against her.
The next day her cousin Stannard Cameron came over. Stannard was a long, lazy youth, with a notion that what he did or didn’t do was a matter of some importance to the universe. All the Camerons were inclined to that supposition, all but 17 the Robert Camerons; and we don’t know about them yet.
“So they’re going to ship me up into the wilds of Vermont to Uncle Bob’s,” he ended his tale of woe. “They’ll be long on the soil, and all that rot. Have a farm, haven’t they?”
“I was invited up there, too,” said Elliott.
“You!” An instant change became visible in the melancholy countenance. “Going?”
“No, I think not.”
“Oh, come on! Be a sport. We’d have fun together.”
“I’ll be a sport, but not that kind.”
“Guess again, Elliott. You and I could paint the place red, whatever kind of a shack it is they’ve got.”
“Stannard,” said the girl, “you’re terribly young. If you think I’d go anywhere with you and put up any kind of a game on our cousins—cousins, Stan—”