When they talked, it was always of the same thing:  the children she had left at home,—­Stuart and Phil and little Elsie.  I did not listen as closely as I might have done had I known what a difference those children were to make in my life.  I little thought that a day was coming when they were to carry me away from the beautiful garden that I had grown to love almost like my old home.  But I heard enough to know that they were as mischievous as the day is long, and that they kept their poor old great-aunt Patricia in a woful state of nervous excitement from morning till night.  I gathered, besides, that their father was a doctor, away from home much of the time.  That was why their great-aunt had them in charge.

Their mother had come out to her father’s home in California to grow strong and well.  The sun burned a pink into the blossoms of the oleander hedges, and the wind blew life into the swaying branches of the pepper-trees, but neither seemed to make her any better.  After awhile she could not even be carried out to her place in the hammock.  Then they sent for Doctor Tremont and the children.

The first that I knew of their arrival, the two boys came whooping down the paths after the gardener, shouting, “Show us the monkeys, David!  Show us the monkeys!  Which one is Dago, and which one is Matches?”

I did not want to come down for fear that Stuart might treat me as he had done Elsie’s kitten.  I had heard a letter read, which told how he had tried to cure it of fits.  He gave it a shock with his father’s electric battery, and turned the current on so strong that he killed it.  Not knowing but that he might try some trick on me, I held back until I saw him feeding peanuts to Matches.  I never could bear her.  She is the only monkey in the garden that I have never been on friendly terms with, so I came down at once to get my share of peanuts, and hers, too, if possible.

I must say that I took a great fancy to both the boys; they were so friendly and good-natured.  They each had round chubby faces, and hard little fists.  There was a wide-awake look in their big, honest, gray eyes, and their light hair curled over their heads in little tight rings.  Elsie was only five,—­a restless, dimpled little bunch of mischief, always getting into trouble, because she would try to do everything that her brothers did.

The gardener fished her out of the fountain twice in the week she was there.  She was reaching for the goldfish with her fat little hands, and toppled in, head first.  Phil began the week by getting a bee-sting on his lip, and a bite on the cheek from a parrot that he was teasing.  As for Stuart, I think he had climbed every tree on the place before the first day was over, and torn his best clothes nearly off his back.  The gardener had a sorry time of it while they stayed.  He complained that “a herd of wild buffalo turned loose to rend and destroy” would not have done as much damage to his fruit and flowers as they.  “Not as they means to do it, I don’t think,” he said.  “But they’re so chock-full of go that they fair runs away with their selves.”  The gardener’s excitement did not long last, however.