"Now, Frank, don't forget to make my garden during your spring vacation!" exclaimed Ellen, with a laugh. "Because I shall be here for a long visit in the summer, and I shall want it to look beautifully."
Frank, for a wonder, looked absorbed in his own thoughts; but she was not the girl to let him off.
"If my garden don't look as handsome as Mary's," she went on, after giving his sleeve a playful pull, "I shall know you've forgotten all about me, and I shall—"
A quick, peculiar, earnest glance from under his long lashes rather confused the laughing miss, and she stopped abruptly, with a deep blush.
"It's altogether likely we shall forget you," he said, with an air of perfect gravity. "We shall have so much in P— to distract our thoughts from our friends. You, in the city, going constantly into company, receiving attention from nobody knows who, and going to no one knows how many parties a week, will probably think of us more frequently and remember us much longer."
"You may joke about it as much as you like, Frank," she rejoined, rather more warmly than the occasion called for; "but I know you don't believe any such thing! I'm sure you and Aunt Collins and Mary and everybody knows that this is the dearest home I ever had: and that nothing but my feeling that father needs me makes me happy at all, when I think of leaving it. I love every old stump of a tree and every brown cottage in this dear quiet country place better than all the fine houses and parks there are in the city. And, beside all that, here is Uncle Collins always ready to pull my teeth when they ache, and aunty, dear aunty, to tell me my faults so kindly that I'm afraid I don't feel half bad enough about them, and Mary to love, and you to—"
"To tease," he added, gravely, interrupting her.
"No,—infinitive mode, present tense, passive voice,—'to be teased,' if you please," she added, gayly. "You'll be sorry, sir, when I'm gone, you didn't appreciate my society better; and you'll be glad, if you have any feeling left, to come to B— and see me. Oh, Frank, I hope it isn't wicked, but I really wish you were my own brother! I should be so glad if you were obliged to go with me to the city; for I shall so need somebody to tell me a great many things."
The young collegian made a wry face, and, during the remainder of the evening, scarcely spoke.
The few days which intervened before she was to leave passed rapidly away. Together the cousins visited every nook, hill, and streamlet of their favorite haunts. They talked much of the past, but spoke little of the future. Mary, in her own peculiar way, was continually suggesting some pleasant and improving theme for conversation, and Ellen was constantly regretting that she had not profited better by this dear friend's lovely example.