"Yes," said Helen, turning her flushed, smiling face. "And this is my cousin, Frank Morley, Marion. And here is my brother Harry, who has almost grown to be a man since I went away; and here is little Jock."
Marion shook hands with all these new acquaintances; the boys seized bags and baskets, and the young man led the way from the car and assisted them to the platform outside, near which a large open carriage was standing, with a broadly-smiling ebony coachman, whom Helen greeted warmly. Then her cousin told her that she had better drive home at once. "I shall stay and attend to the trunks, and will see you later," he said.
So Helen, Marion, and the boys were bundled into the carriage, and drove away through the streets of Scarborough,—Helen explaining that her home was at the opposite end of the town from the station. "Indeed we are quite in the county," she said: "and I like it much better than living in town."
"Who would wish to live in a town like this!" asked Marion, eying disdainfully the rural-looking streets through which they were passing. "I like the overflowing life, the roar and fret of a great city; but places of this kind seem to me made only to put people to sleep, mentally as well as physically."
"Oh, Scarborough is a very nice place when you know it!" said Helen, in arms at once for her birth-place. "And I assure you people are not asleep in it, by any means."
"These young gentlemen certainly look wide awake," resumed Marion, regarding the two boys, who were in turn regarding her with large and solemn eyes. "And so looked your cousin—very wide awake indeed."
"Oh, Frank is a delightful boy!" exclaimed Helen; "and I am very fond of him."
"I am glad to hear it," said Marion. "I hope you will be fond enough of him to keep him away from me; for if I abhor anything, it is a boy—I mean" (with a glance at the two young faces before her) "a boy who fancies himself a man."
"Frank is twenty years old," observed Harry, who, being himself barely ten, naturally regarded this as a venerable age.
"So I imagined," replied Marion; "and twenty is not my favorite age—for a man. Jock's age suits me better. Jock, how old are you?"