“I don’t know about that, Molly, but he thinks a good deal of Hoppity. He’ll have a splendid time with the little trotter while we’re away.”
“Kirke has made many friends at Silver Gate City,” remarked his mother. “Harry Hobbs for one.” Then, turning to Mr. Rowe, she added, in a sprightly tone,—“Kirke proposes doing a little missionary work during vacation, papa. Have you any objection to his taking care of a ‘fresh-air child’ for a fortnight?”
“A ‘fresh-air child,’ my dear? I don’t quite understand.”
“Well, Harry Hobbs, for instance. Harry is in need of a change of scene. Do you approve his coming to Santa Luzia by and by?”
“O papa! I was only in fun,” exclaimed Kirke in hot haste. “I don’t want Harry to come; really and truly I don’t. Paul and I have planned no end of good times there on the beach by ourselves.”
“And you think Harry wouldn’t enjoy those good times? Is that it, my son?”
“No, papa; Harry would enjoy them fast enough,” Kirke laughed and blushed; “the bother is that Paul and I wouldn’t enjoy him. The little kid would be frightfully in the way with his mud-pies, and his tagging, and his chattering. Don’t you see, papa?”
“Then, Miss Hobbs dresses Harry so oddly, papa,” added Molly, as her father did not reply. “She makes him look for all the world like one of Mr. Palmer Cox’s brownies; and people at Santa Luzia wouldn’t know but Harry was one of our family.”
“What a shocking thought, Molly!” cried Mr. Rowe, vastly entertained by her expression of deep distress. “In the face of a danger like this it never will do for us to take Harry.”
“You’re laughing at me, papa; but you don’t understand how girls feel about such things. Kirke doesn’t understand, either.”