"Poor little fellow," Aunt Florence said one morning, when a cluster of bluebells was brought her, wound so closely not a blossom could move its dainty head. "How I wish he would come again."
"He won't, though, 'cept when nobody knows," observed Billy, "and if any one says a word against his father, he'll fight."
"I'm curious to see his father, too," replied Aunt Florence. "Betty has told me so much about the family that I'd like to talk to that man; I'd say some things he'd remember."
"Antoine used to come often," said Betty. "We always tease him to tell stories. Everybody likes him; you'll see him sometime, auntie, and then you'll like him, too."
"I shall tell him what I think of him," declared Aunt Florence; but a week later, when Antoine came, she didn't say a word.
It was a rainy afternoon, and when Billy announced that the game must be circus as usual, and that the parade should be first on the programme, Betty objected.
"Billy Grannis," she exclaimed, "you're a nuisance. Gerald and I have played circus with you until we are sick and tired of it. You may be a lion-tamer if you want to, but you and your old lion will have to have a show of your own. I won't stand it any longer, and you can't have my cat for a polar bear, either."
"Why, Bet," was the remonstrance, "what makes you be so cross? I thought you liked to play circus. Do you want to be the lion-tamer this time, Bet? I'll let you take my big dog; do you want to, Betty?"
"No, Billy, I don't want to be anything that's in a circus, so there! I'll play Grace Darling, though; you and Gerald and Hero may be the shipwrecked sailors, and I'll be Grace Darling."
"I don't want to play shipwreck," declared Gerald. "I had enough of shipwrecks when the California went down."