"Oh, we have brought our Time too near," she exclaimed. "It is good-bye! No, no, Prue! Oh—this time it is good-bye!"
* * * * *
"No, no—I don't want to wake up yet! It is too soon! I haven't said good-bye. Not yet, Aunt Mary!"
"It's not 'good-bye', my Mollie, it's 'how d'ye do?' you've got to say!
You have been dreaming too hard, child."
Mollie sat up and rubbed her eyes in bewilderment, for it was not Aunt
Mary at all, but Mother, standing there and smiling.
"No, it's not my ghost," she laughed, when Mollie had released her stranglehold. "I came down partly to see how my daughterling was getting along, and partly to ask Grannie and Aunt Mary if they would like two more troublesome, non-paying guests. Would it bore you unutterably to have to entertain your twin and Jerry Outram for a fortnight?"
"Oh, Mother! Not really! How perfectly lovely! Why?"
"Measles at school; so they are closing a month early, and it would be such a boon to Mrs. Outram and me if the boys could be quarantined away from home. Aunt Mary says she would like to have them, strange woman, and Grannie is already planning a course of Manners—the beautiful capital-M Manners of her young days."
Mollie laughed as she gave her mother a comfortable unmannerly hug. "You are all frauds," she said. "Don't talk to me of your young days. I guess they weren't one pin better than ours. I hope Dick and Jerry are coming soon."
"To-morrow. Now, I'll have some tea, and then a little talk, and then I must be off again. I stole Father's car, as he has gone down to Bournemouth. So there's no time to waste. What beautiful strawberries!"