"Are some boys coming?" asked Joel, finding his tongue.
"Yes," said the old lady. "Oh, didn't I tell you? I wrote to the mother to send the two biggest boys and one girl—I couldn't take any more than one girl, but she'll be a quiet, gentle little thing, of course, and keep the boys civilized. That's what I wanted her for."
"Ugh!" exclaimed Joel in great disgust, and digging the toes of one foot well into the thick carpet.
"Oh, she won't trouble you, Joel," said the old lady, confidently; "she'll want to play with dolls all the time. I will keep her supplied. And if she should get discontented, why I'll ask Polly what to do. But what I want to know from you, Joel, is, will you help me out with those boys?"
Madam Van Ruypen grasped him again by the shoulders to look him squarely in the face. "Will you, Joel?"
"Pip is coming home with Ben and Jasper," said Joel, irrelevantly.
"What? Not that boy who almost killed Jasper King?" cried Madam Van Ruypen, and letting her hands again fall, this time in sheer astonishment.
"He didn't," contradicted Joel, bluntly.
"Well, he was the cause of it, anyway," said the old lady, inconsequently, "so never mind, we won't waste words about him. I wouldn't have believed that Mr. King would do such a thing. Dear me, I shouldn't want ever to see the boy again."
"Well, Grandpapa does," said Joel, bobbing his black head, "'cause he's going to bring him; an' I'm glad of it."