By this time, Dick had bounced out of his room. A bath-robe was round him, over his pink-striped pajamas, and as he heard Aunt Rachel’s assurance that their cause was won, he whispered to Dolly, “Let’s go down and hug her!”
“Let’s!” replied Dolly, and the two bare-footed, dressing-gowned little figures flew downstairs and precipitated themselves upon the already exhausted lady.
“Don’t, children!” cried Aunt Abbie, as Miss Rachel was almost lost to sight in clouds of eider-down flannel, and four eager, waving arms. “Don’t! you’ll wear Auntie Rachel out, she’s almost collapsed now.”
“No, Abbie; let them be. I like it,” gasped Aunt Rachel, from behind two curly heads that seemed to be devouring her.
So Aunt Abbie only laughed, inwardly rejoicing that the children had brought about an amicable adjustment of the old quarrel, and glad, too, that her reserved and undemonstrative sister enjoyed the wild antics of the two little savages.
“Auntie Abbie next!” shouted Dick, gleefully, and Aunt Rachel received a respite, as the twins’ attentions were showered upon their other aunt.
But she wouldn’t stand quite so much.
“Be off with you!” she cried. “You’re worse than a pair of little bear-cubs!”
“We are bear-cubs,” cried Dick, enchanted with the suggestion. Then he growled, and pawed and clawed at Aunt Abbie, winding up with a hug that nearly cracked her bones.
Dolly, always ready to take her cue, was also a bear-cub, and between them they made Aunt Abbie’s life miserable for a few minutes.