"Here are the children. They've been asking when we were to have the first meeting, so I know they'll be glad to give Saturday afternoon to it."
"The children" of Helen's patronizing expression came rushing into the yard at the moment. Ethel Brown Morton, tall and rosy, her cheeks flushed with running, led the way; her cousin, Ethel Blue Morton, not quite so tall or quite so rosy, made a fair second, and their newly-found cousin, Dorothy Smith, brought up the rear, panting a trifle harder than the rest, but already looking plumper and sturdier than she had during the summer at Chautauqua.
They greeted Margaret and James gladly, and sat down on the steps of the porch to engage in the conversation.
"Hullo," a voice came through the screen door. "I'm coming out."
"That must be my friend Dicky," declared James. "Come on, old man," and he arranged his knees in position to serve as a seat for the six-year-old who calmly sat himself down upon them.
"How are you?" questioned James gravely. "All right?"
"Firtht rate," replied Dicky briefly. "Have a thuck?" and he offered James the moist end of an all-day-sucker, withdrawing it from his own mouth for the purpose.
"Thank you, I'm not eating candy to-day, sir," responded James seriously. "Much obliged to you, all the same."
Dicky nodded his recognition of James's thanks and resumed his occupation.
"It keeps us still though we're not pretty to look at as we do it," commented Ethel Brown.