"You are a queer chick," said the President indulgently, "but I quite agree with you in regard to Henderson. He is a splendid fellow, however, in spite of his long name. They ought to have called him Ned Junior. He is big Ned all over again, just as Belle the second is the counterpart of her mother. Lorene is the odd piece. Every family has one odd one, I believe. Lorene is like neither her father nor mother."
"What funny names! They are as bad as ours. But I should like to know the children—the folks, I mean. I s'pose Belle is too old to be called a child any longer, ain't she?"
"Yes, Belle is sixteen and stylish," he answered grimly, as if that told the story, and it really did, for little more could be said of the frivolous, society-loving girl, brought up to follow in the footsteps of her worldly mother.
"Do they come here often?" ventured Gail, still studying the group, none of whom looked really happy.
"No, oh no," Mrs. Campbell answered hastily. "Martindale is too quiet for Mrs. Meadows. Ned sent Henderson and Lorene up here for a month last summer, but Belle has never been our guest. Grandpa and I have visited them twice in Chicago, but that is all we have ever seen them."
"I wish they lived nearer," sighed Peace. "We never had any cousins of our own, but maybe they'd adopt us too, like you did; then we'd know what it feels like to have real relations."
"Suppose you write Lorene. I think she would enjoy getting letters from a little girl so near her own age."
"That would be nice, s'posing I liked to write letters," Peace assented, "but I don't. I'll send her a Christmas present, though; and a valentine when it comes time, and a birthday gift, too. She will like that, won't she? What street does she live on in Chicago? It'll have to go pretty soon if it gets there in time for Christmas. That's only a week off. Mercy! What a lot of work we'll have to do before then, getting ready for the parties. I do love parties! But I don't see what you wanted to make two for. One would have been a plenty, and not near so much work."
Mrs. Campbell laughed comfortably. "The house isn't large enough to accommodate all we want to invite, so we had to make two parties. Besides, the evening party is a sort of 'coming out' affair for my older girls—"
"Coming out of what?"