“Rusty would be the nicest cat in the world if he had no ears at all,” declared Anne loyally from her trunk, while Rusty writhed about her lap in a frenzy of welcome.

“Aren’t you glad to see us back, Aunty?” demanded Phil.

“Yes.  But I wish you’d tidy things up,” said Aunt Jamesina plaintively, looking at the wilderness of trunks and suitcases by which the four laughing, chattering girls were surrounded.  “You can talk just as well later on.  Work first and then play used to be my motto when I was a girl.”

“Oh, we’ve just reversed that in this generation, Aunty.  Our motto is play your play and then dig in.  You can do your work so much better if you’ve had a good bout of play first.”

“If you are going to marry a minister,” said Aunt Jamesina, picking up Joseph and her knitting and resigning herself to the inevitable with the charming grace that made her the queen of housemothers, “you will have to give up such expressions as ‘dig in.’”

“Why?” moaned Phil.  “Oh, why must a minister’s wife be supposed to utter only prunes and prisms?  I shan’t.  Everybody on Patterson Street uses slang—­that is to say, metaphorical language—­and if I didn’t they would think me insufferably proud and stuck up.”

“Have you broken the news to your family?” asked Priscilla, feeding the Sarah-cat bits from her lunchbasket.

Phil nodded.

“How did they take it?”

“Oh, mother rampaged.  But I stood rockfirm—­even I, Philippa Gordon, who never before could hold fast to anything.  Father was calmer.  Father’s own daddy was a minister, so you see he has a soft spot in his heart for the cloth.  I had Jo up to Mount Holly, after mother grew calm, and they both loved him.  But mother gave him some frightful hints in every conversation regarding what she had hoped for me.  Oh, my vacation pathway hasn’t been exactly strewn with roses, girls dear.  But—­I’ve won out and I’ve got Jo.  Nothing else matters.”

“To you,” said Aunt Jamesina darkly.

“Nor to Jo, either,” retorted Phil.  “You keep on pitying him.  Why, pray?  I think he’s to be envied.  He’s getting brains, beauty, and a heart of gold in me.”

“It’s well we know how to take your speeches,” said Aunt Jamesina patiently.  “I hope you don’t talk like that before strangers.  What would they think?”

“Oh, I don’t want to know what they think.  I don’t want to see myself as others see me.  I’m sure it would be horribly uncomfortable most of the time.  I don’t believe Burns was really sincere in that prayer, either.”

“Oh, I daresay we all pray for some things that we really don’t want, if we were only honest enough to look into our hearts,” owned Aunt Jamesina candidly.  “I’ve a notion that such prayers don’t rise very far. I used to pray that I might be enabled to forgive a certain person, but I know now I really didn’t want to forgive her.  When I finally got that I did want to I forgave her without having to pray about it.”