"That's a good girl. Well, suppose you sleep with Bumble. She has only a three-quarter bed, but if you don't quarrel you won't fall out."
"All right," said Patty. "I'll move my things at once."
"Very well, my dear; then we can give your room to Mr. and Mrs. Carleton, and Gertrude will have to room with Nan, and the other children must go up in the third story; no,—Harry can sleep with Bob. I declare I didn't think it would crowd us so, when I invited the whole family. But it will be only for a week, and we'll get along somehow."
"Many hands make light work," and with much flurrying and scurrying the rooms were made ready for the expected guests.
About noon the expressman came, bringing two trunks.
"'Coming events cast their shadows before,'" said Uncle Ted; "here come the wardrobes of the Carleton family."
"They must have sent them by express yesterday," said Aunt Grace; "dear me, how forehanded some people are. I wish I had been born that way. But when I go anywhere I take my trunk with me, and then I always leave it behind."
They all laughed at this paradoxical statement, and Uncle Ted said, "That's where you differ from an elephant." Then as the trunks were set out on the veranda, he exclaimed, "Good gracious, my dear, these aren't the Carleton's trunks. They're marked 'F. M. T.,'—both of them."
"'F.M.T.,'" echoed Mrs. Barlow, "why, who can that be?"
"The Carletons have borrowed other people's trunks to come with," suggested
Nan.