e laughing and protesting the while.

"Oh, Ben," she panted, "you are perfectly dreadful."

"Why, is that you, Edna?" said Ben in pretended surprise. "I thought you
were my valise; it is too bad I made the mistake and dumped you down so
unceremoniously."

Edna knew perfectly well how to take this so she picked herself up
laughing, and started after Ben who leaped over the railing of the porch
thus making his escape. By this time Mrs. Willis and Mrs. Conway had
come out and the whole company went indoors, Ben the last to come,
peeping in through a crack of the door, and then slinking in with a
pretense of being afraid of Edna. An hour later, these two were tramping
over the place, hand in hand, making all sorts of discoveries, leaving
Willis deep in a book and the older people chatting cozily before the
open fire.

Aunt Emmeline, Uncle Wilbur and Becky were the next to come, Becky being
in a pout because her sweetheart had failed to make the train, and Aunt
Emmeline fussing and arguing with her.

"You know, Becky, that he is coming, and I don't see what difference a
couple of hours will make," she said as she gave her hand, to her
sister, Mrs. Willis. "I am just telling Becky, Cecelia, that she is very
foolish to make such a fuss because Howard is detained; he missed the
train, you see, and can't arrive till the next comes in." She passed on
into the house still talking, while Edna made her escape upstairs. She
had not noticed the little girl, and Edna felt rather slighted.

However, this was all forgotten a little later when her own brothers and
sister as well as her father were to be welcomed. You would suppose Edna
had been parted from them for at least a year, so joyous were her
greetings, and so much did she have to tell. She had scarcely unburdened
herself of all her happenings, before in swarmed Uncle Bert and his
family. There was so many of these that for a little while they seemed
to fill the entire house, for, first appeared Aunt Lucia and after her
the nurse carrying the baby, then Uncle Bert with little Herbert in his
arms, and then Lulie and Allen and Ted. Cousin Becky's sweetheart,
Howard Colby, came on the last train and ended the list of guests. What
a houseful it was, to be sure, and what long, long tables in the
dining-room. Reliance was not able to wait on everybody, and so Amanda's
niece Fanny, took a hand, thus everyone was served.

Edna was rather shy of those cousins whom she had not seen f