"We shall be quite ready," Elizabeth sang back dreamily.
"We shall be ready," echoed Elsie, not to be excluded from her full share in future proceedings, "and we shall be much pleased to be ready!"
The boys turning the pages of the Birds had reached the picture of the American robin redbreast; and the girls turning the pages of the Quadrupeds had reached the picture of the American rabbit; Elizabeth was softly stroking its ears and coat.
"I think," said Herbert, looking across at Elizabeth, and also of that cordial lusty household bird whose picture was before him, "I think that if a real American were to begin at twenty and keep on until he was, say, ninety, he'd be able to down the immigrants with a family."
"Why ninety?" inquired Elizabeth, looking tenderly back at him and apparently disturbed by the fixing of an arbitrary limit.
"That's all the Bible allows; then you take a rest."
"Oh, then our family didn't want any rest," exclaimed Harold; "for grandfather had a child when he was ninety-one: isn't that so, Elizabeth?"
"Oh, Harold! You've got that wrong. It wasn't grandmother, you dear lamb! Wasn't it a woman in the Old Testament—Sarah—or Hagar—or maybe Rebecca?"
"Anyhow, I'm right about grandfather! I'm positive he had one. Hurrah for grandfather! He was the right kind of American! When I'm a man, I'll be the right kind: I'll have the largest family in this neighborhood."
"Don't say that! Take that back!"