A PAIR OF MOTHERLY ARMS LIFTED HER DOWN FROM THE SEAT.
"Yes, Aunt Eliza. Sometimes I read the Bible to Cousin Robert—that is, when he asks me."
Mrs. Dawson looked surprised at hearing this, but she asked no more questions then, and suggested that they should go downstairs.
Very shortly afterwards the children returned in hot haste, their father having met them and told them who had arrived. There followed o much kissing, and talking, and laughing, that Mousey felt quite bewildered; and the noise awakening baby, he began to cry, refusing to be comforted until his mother brought him down into the sitting-room.
"I don't suppose he remembers me," Mousey said after she had talked to him, and coaxed him to smile as he sat on Mrs. Dawson's lap, "for it's quite five months since he saw me, and that must seem a long time to a baby, I'm sure."
Whether baby remembered her or not, he was evidently pleased with his cousin's appearance, for he stretched out his chubby arms, and was supremely happy when Mousey shifted him from his mother's knees to her own.
Everyone made so much of Mousey that she felt almost glad of the parting which had brought about such a happy reunion. There were so many questions for her to answer that at last her aunt declared she was beginning to look quite weary, and begged the children to give her a little peace.
"I am not in the least tired," Mousey declared; and she spoke the truth, for she was far too excited to feel fatigued just then.
"I want Mousey to come around the gardens with me to see the improvements I've made since she was here," Uncle Dick said later on.