I thought this would be very nice, and I began to ask all sorts of questions about Harry and Lottie, and Alick and Murray, and Bertie and the baby.  How funny it would seem when the nursery was so full!  I thought the day would never come.  But it did.  The carriage was sent off to the station, and in due time it came back, quite full to overflowing with children!

There was a good deal of shyness at first, when we all stood in a row, and looked at each other, answering grandmamma’s questions seriously, and feeling very odd.  But that was only the first evening.  Next day we were quite happy and comfortable, had a very merry breakfast, and then a delightful ramble about the gardens and orchards.  Of course, I was only one of the little ones, coming in between Alick and Murray, feeling very small beside Lottie and Harry.  Yet we were all very good friends, and Lottie soon told me that she thought it would be very nice to have a girl to talk to, and not only boys.  This remark pleased me, though when I thought of Bobbie, it sounded rather strange.  Indeed, I am not sure that I was not a little too fond of boys’ play.

I remember feeling rather disappointed one day when she said to me in the garden—­

“Sissy, let’s come and have a nice quiet walk together, and leave the boys to play by themselves.”

[Illustration:  Going to the wars.]

Now, three of the boys were just preparing for a military march, one with a bright flag, another with a trumpet, and another with a sword-stick, so-called; and there was a most refreshing prospect of shouting, stamping, and huzzahs!  Do you wonder that I turned away rather unwillingly?

However, Lottie’s confidences soon made up for it all.  Such beautiful stories Lottie could tell!  When she began to talk about the Alps, and the blue lake and the mountain flowers, I thought it seemed almost as good as my hymns and verses.  I know I looked up at her with eyes full of admiration, and when she put her arms round me, and gave me a loving kiss, I thought I had never been so happy before.

And then she listened to all I had to tell her about Bobbie, and baby Willie, and Rosalinda, and gave me her advice about dressing Rosalinda like the Queen.

My letters, too, she read, and said they were very nice, which made me love mamma for writing them all the more.  And she showed me her own letter that had just come across the sea, with its foreign stamps and thin paper.  Quite a nice talk it was altogether, and we were ever so sorry when we were called in to dinner.

My boy-cousins were very polite to me at first, and hardly seemed to know what to make of me.  Harry was a little too patronizing, called me “a mite of a thing,” and played tricks upon me in a gentle way.  But then he was not often with us.  He had not been a night in the house before he had quite determined to be a sailor like Uncle Hugh, so it followed, as a matter of course, that he must be always with him.