President's coat-sleeve. "Let's go home now. I want to see what it's
like. You didn't bring the carriage, did you? It's just as well, I
guess, for I s'pose we'll have lots of rides anyway. Only I wanted to
see if the horses looked anything like Black Prince. Is this our car?
Oak Street--I'll remember that; I may want to do some travelling all by
myself some day. If you've got ten rooms in your house, how many are you
going to turn over to us? For our very own, I mean. Three in a room
makes things awfully crowded if the rooms are as teeny as they were in
our house in Parker. 'Tisn't so bad in winter, but in summer we nearly
roast to death nights. Do you have much comp'ny, and will we have to
give up our rooms to them all the time? I forgot to ask you about these
things before we said we'd come."

"Peace!" reproved Gail in an undertone, trying to check the flow of
questions and information pouring so rapidly from the lively tongue.
"Don't talk all the time. Give grandpa a chance to say a few words."

"Yes, I will," responded the child with angelic sweetness, in such loud
tones that she could be heard all over the car. "I'm waiting for him to
say a few words now. How about it, grandpa? Shall we each have a room or
must we double up or thribble--"

"Peace!" called Allee in wild excitement, "there is Frances Sherrar's
house!"

"Where? Is it, grandpa?" asked Cherry, a little twinge of envy seizing
her as she remembered her younger sisters' visit there a few weeks
before.

"Yes," he replied, glancing hastily out of the window, "I think very
likely it was, as they live on the corner we have just passed, and the
next street is where we get off. Press the button, Curlypate, or the
conductor will carry us by. I didn't know you were acquainted with the
Sherrars, Abigail. Frances is a student at the University; you will
probably be in some of her classes. Give me your hand, Hope. There,
mother, all our family are off. Right about face! One block west,
and--here we are. Welcome home, my children! Peace, how do you like the
looks of it?"

They had paused in front of a great, rambling, old house, set in the
midst of a wide lawn, brown and sere now with approaching winter, and
surrounded by huge, knotted, gnarled, old oaks, whose dry leaves still
clung to the twisted branches and rustled in the crisp air. A fat,
sleek, black Tabby lay asleep on the warm porch-rail; a gaunt, ungainly
greyhound lay sunning himself on the door mat,