"Any cookies, Eliza?" asked King, apropos of nothing.
"Cookies, is it? There do be, indade! But if yez be afther eatin' thim now, ye'll shpoil yer supper,—thot ye will! Here's one a piece to ye, and now run away, and lave me do me worruk. Be off with yez!"
After accepting a cookie apiece, the children bounced out the back door and down into the garden in search of Carter.
"We've come, Carter; we've come!" cried Marjorie, flinging open a door of the green-house in which Carter was busy potting some plants.
"You don't say so, Miss Mischief! Well, I'm right down glad to see you! And is this Master King? And Miss Kitty? Well, you all grow like weeds after a rain, but I'll warrant you're as full of mischief as ever!"
"Kitty isn't mischievous," said Marjorie, who was proud of the sedate member of the family.
"And it's Miss Kitty who's to spend the summer, isn't it? Well, then, I won't have the times I had last year, pulling children up from down the well,—and picking them up with broken ankles after they slid down the roof! Nothing of that sort, eh?" Carter's eyes twinkled as he looked at Marjorie, who burst into laughter at reminiscences.
"No, nothing of that sort, Carter; but we're all going to be here for a few days, and we're going to give you the time of your life. Will you take us out rowing in the boat?"
"I'll go along with you to make sure you don't drown yourself; but I think you're getting big enough to do your own rowing. I'm not as young as I was, Miss Midget, and I'm chock-full of rheumatism."
"Oh, we'd just as lieve row, Carter; King's fine at it, and I can row pretty well myself."