"Oh, yes," replied Rosie. "You know she laughs at us; and she always teases us because we're so funnily dressed, and that isn't our fault. Donnie and Mrs. Plunkett settle all about that, and I'm sure I don't like being dressed as we are one bit; I often feel ashamed to go into church with all the funny colors we have to wear; and there's another thing, Emma hasn't half such pretty things as we used to have when we were with mamma!"
Rosie grew quite pink with indignation at the remembrance of what she had suffered by reason of Donnie's uneducated taste; and Nessa agreed that it was aggravating to have to wear clothes that one didn't like, and then be made fun of into the bargain.
"But tell me something," she continued; "are they all my cousins, too?"
"Oh, yes," cried Winnie, "so they are! Our cousins; doesn't that sound nice?"
"What's funny," said Murtagh, "is about Cousin Jane. She's our cousin, and Emma and Frankie are our cousins, too, because—Uncle William had a son. Oh, I never can remember that rigmarole; Rosie knows. Explain all about it, Rosie."
"You always begin wrong, Murtagh. That's why you can't remember," replied Rosie. "Uncle William was Uncle Blair's twin brother. Uncle William died and had a son."
"Had a son and died, you mean," cried Murtagh, "and the son married cousin Jane, and had another son called 'little Frankie,' and then he died too, and—"
"That means Frankie died," interrupted Winnie; "you're as bad as Rosie, Murtagh!"
"Well, but I couldn't say it any other way," replied Murtagh. "If I said, then he died too and had a son called Frankie, that would mean he had Frankie after he died. Perhaps he did; I'm sure I don't know; he's been dead a very long time, that's all I know about it, and Frankie's the very jolliest little son any one could ever have!"
"Uncle Blair said," Nessa continued, rising, "that they were making a driving tour through the hills, and that they would end here."