I cannot sleep, for Serena needs comforting. She is perfectly crushed. She keeps moaning that she wants to go back to the city. She can't get there now. She will have to wait, but oh! how sorry I am for her. Her summer here is spoiled. She is so ashamed of herself that she does not know what to do. She has prided herself so much on her cleverness. She thought that these country cats were going to look up to her, and admire her, and have her for a leader, and now she sees that they despise her and make fun of her, and don't want to have anything to do with anything or any creature from Boston—and they have found out that she told a lie about being a pure-bred Angora. That is about the worst cut of all.
Well, I hope she will soon go to sleep. It is not interesting to think things over when such disagreeable things happen. It would be vastly more agreeable to sink into a sound, sweet sleep.
CHAPTER XVI
THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN
We had a great surprise this morning. I can't help thinking it over as I sit here this evening on the feather bed, my body half asleep, but my mind awake and lively.
It was just about dinner time—that is, the early, noon dinner of the Gleasons—Slyboots and I were on the upper veranda. Serena was in here in this closet on the feather bed. She feels so terribly about her experiences of last night at the mole-hunt that I have not been able to get her to budge out of the house all day.
Well, Slyboots and I heard carriage wheels and looked down. There was a stout-looking woman driving a big horse harnessed to a double-seated express wagon in which sat beside herself three children. I knew that they must be the Gleason children coming home, so I got up and looked curiously through the veranda railing.
Yes, there they were, the two little boys, and the little girl and their aunt. Mrs. Gleason ran out of the house and kissed her children, and Mary and her mother came out too.
My dear little mistress was greatly excited. I knew that she was, by the way she looked from her mother to the children. She was longing to go and speak to them, and presently Mrs. Denville took her hand, and led her forward.
The two boys were the queerest little fellows I ever saw. There is only a year's difference between their ages, and they look almost like twins. Timothy and Robert are their names. The girl is a little witch. Her name is Della. The two boys are prim and proper like two little old men. They keep together nearly all the time. The girl is flying about by herself all over the place. I fancied at first that Mary would like the little boys better than the little girl, but now I am beginning to think I was mistaken.
As soon as the aunt arrived this morning, her sister-in-law, Mrs. Gleason, said: “You will, of course, put your horse out.”