"O Cousin Elsie, how nice in you to come and to bring Edward and Violet! You are going to let them stay, I am sure, and I am so glad. So glad to see you, too, Cousin Rose and Cousin Horace: it seems as if I ought to call you aunt and uncle, though."
"Then suppose you do," Mr. Dinsmore said, shaking hands with her, and kissing her rosy cheek. "You have my permission."
"I shall, then, and thank you," she returned in her bright merry tones. "O Don," turning to Mr. Keith with outstretched hands, "so here you are! that's a good boy."
"Yes, and so good a boy must not be put off with less than others get," he said, following Mr. Dinsmore's example.
"Well, as you are only a cousin it doesn't matter," she remarked indifferently. "Please all make yourselves at home. Oh there's the stage stopping at the gate! the girls have come!" and she flew out to welcome them.
The little parlor was quite inconveniently crowded, but that afforded subject for mirth, as Mary introduced her friends and bustled about trying to find seats for them all.
"We shall have to take dinner in relays or else set a table in here, besides the one in the dining-room," she said, laughing.
"Let Amy and me go to our room and dress while your first set eat, and give us our dinner afterwards," suggested Ella Neff.
"Yes, I should much prefer it," Miss Fletcher said, "for we are really too dusty and dirty to sit down to your table now."
"And I shall act as waiter to the first table and eat with these ladies at the second," said Charlie.