"I wonder if she will like us?" Bertie said, as he climbed to the top of a gate, and looked anxiously down the white dusty road.
"I wonder if we shall like her?" Eddie replied: "that's of more importance, I think."
"I do wish she was a boy," Bertie repeated for about the hundredth time in the course of three days. "One never knows what to do with a girl cousin. Of course she won't care about cricket, though Lillie Mayson likes it, and she will be afraid of the dogs, and scream at old Jerry. I wonder we never even heard of her before, or of Uncle Frank either. I wonder——"
"What's the use of wondering, Bert?" Eddie interrupted, a little impatiently. "Papa told us all he wished us to know, I dare say. Come along for a walk. What's the good of idling here all the morning? It won't bring the carriage a minute sooner to stand watching for it."
"No, of course not; but I want to rush down the road to meet it, and we can't go for a walk till it comes. It would be a poor sort of welcome for Cousin Agnes;" and Bertie took another long look down the road, where nothing was visible save a cloud of fine white dust.
Three mornings before Mr. Rivers had summoned both boys to his study, and very gravely informed them that their Uncle Frank was dead, and his only child, Agnes Rivers, was coming to reside at Riversdale.
"She has no home, no friends, no money, no mother. Try and be kind to her, boys. Don't ignore her, Edward; don't tease her, Bertie; and ask her no questions about her parents or her past history, remember that!"
The boys promised; they always obeyed their father implicitly: indeed, absolute unquestioning obedience was one thing Mr. Rivers exacted from every person he came in contact with.
But Bertie was far from satisfied with the very meagre information he had received, and directly he got a favourable opportunity, he besieged Mrs. Mittens, the old housekeeper, with questions concerning the new relation who was coming to make her home with them, and of the Uncle Frank whose name he had never heard before. Eddie did not share his curiosity, or perhaps concluded that his father's command to ask no questions was a general one; Bertie insisted it only referred to Agnes herself, and repeated his father's exact words to the housekeeper.
"I think, Master Bertie, your papa meant you to ask no questions of anybody; and I have very little to tell," she said, gravely. "But this much I think you may know. Your Uncle Frank was your papa's only brother: he displeased your grandpapa, and left home in consequence."