“A carriage! a carriage!” shouted Olly, jumping down, and running to the window.

There, indeed, was one of the shut-up “cars,” as the Westmoreland people call them, coming up the Ravensnest drive.

“It’s Aunt Emma,” said Mrs. Norton, starting up, “how good of her to come over on such a day.  Run, children, and open the front door.”

Down flew Milly and Olly, tumbling over one another in their hurry; but father had already thrown the door open, and who should they see stepping down the carriage-steps but Aunt Emma herself, with her soft gray hair shining under her veil, and her dear kind face as gentle and cheery as ever.

“Aunt Emma!  Aunt Emma!” shouted Olly, dancing up to her, and throwing his arms round her, “are you come to tell us about old Mother Quiverquake?”

“You gipsy, don’t strangle me!  Well, Lucy dear, here I am.  Will you have me to dinner?  I thought we’d all be company for each other this bad day.  Why, Milly, what have you been doing to your cheeks?”

“She’s been crying,” said Olly, in spite of Milly’s pulling him by the sleeve to be quiet, “because I stickened her doll.”

“Well, and quite right too.  Dolls weren’t made to be stickied.  But now, who’s going to carry my bag upstairs?  Take it gently, Milly, it’s got my cap inside, and if you crumple my cap I shall have to sit with my head in a bandbox at dinner.  Old ladies are never seen without their caps you know.  The most dreadful things would happen if they were!  Olly, you may put my umbrella away.  There now, I’ll go to mother’s room and take off my things.”

CHAPTER VII

A STORY-TELLING GAME

When Aunt Emma was safely settled, cap and all, in one of the drawing-room arm-chairs, it seemed to the children as if the rain and the gray sky did not matter nearly so much as they had done half an hour before.  In the first place, her coming made something new and interesting to think about; and in the second place, they felt quite sure that Aunt Emma hadn’t brought her little black bag into the drawing-room with her for nothing.  If only her cap had been in it, why of course she would have left it in mother’s bedroom.  But here it was in her lap, with her two hands folded tight over it, as if it contained something precious!  How very puzzling and interesting!

However, for a long time it seemed as if Aunt Emma had nothing at all to say about her bag.  She began to tell them about her drive—­how in two places the horse had to go splashing through the water, and how once, when they were crossing a little river that ran across the road, the water came so far up the wheels that “I put my head out of the window,” said Aunt Emma, “and said to my old coachman, ’Now, John, if it’s going to get any deeper than this, you’d better turn him round and go home, for I’m an old woman, not a fish, and I can’t swim.  Of course,