our cold is
better."

"Yes, thank you." And a smile began to dimple about Rose's mouth, as she
remembered her retreat under the bed-cover.

Feeling that he had been received with distinguished marks of attention,
Steve strolled away with his topknot higher than ever, and Prince
Charlie pranced across the room, saying in a free and easy tone,

"Mamma sent her love and hopes you will be well enough to come over for
a day next week. It must be desperately dull here for a little thing
like you."

"I'm thirteen and a half, though I do look small," cried Rose,
forgetting her shyness in indignation at this insult to her newly
acquired teens.

"Beg pardon, ma'am; never should have guessed it." And Charlie went off
with a laugh, glad to have struck a spark out of his meek cousin.

Geordie and Will came together, two sturdy eleven and twelve year
olders, and, fixing their round blue eyes on Rose, fired off a question
apiece, as if it was a shooting match and she the target.

"Did you bring your monkey?"

"No; he is dead."

"Are you going to have a boat?"

"I hope not."

Here the two, with a right-about-face movement, abruptly marched away,
and little Jamie demanded with childish frankness,

"Did you bring me anything nice?"

"Yes, lots of candy," answered Rose, whereupon Jamie ascended into her
lap with a sounding kiss and the announcement that he liked her very
much.

This proceeding rather startled Rose, for the other lads looked and
laughed, and in her confusion she said hastily to the young usurper,

"Did you see the circus go by?"

"When? Where?" cried all the boys in great excitement at once.

"Just before you came. At least I thought it was a circus, for I saw a
red and black sort of cart and ever so many little ponies, and--"

She got no farther, for a general shout made her pause suddenly, as
Archie explained the joke by saying in the middle of his laugh,

"It was our new dog-cart and the Shetland ponies. You'll never hear the
last of your circus, cousin."

"But there were so many, and they went so fast, and the cart was so very
red," began Rose, trying to explain her mistake.

"Come and see them all!" cried the Prince. And before she knew what was
happening, she was borne away to the barn and tumultuously introduced to
three shaggy ponies and the gay new dog-cart.

She had never visited these regions before, and had her doubts as to the
propriety of her being there now, but when she suggeste