“Perfectly lovely?” cried the others, and soon all three were seated on the floor of the piazza, with Daisy in the midst, passing her from hand to hand as if she had been something good to eat.  She was used to it, and submitted with perfect good nature to being kissed, trotted, carried up and down, and generally made love to.  Mrs. Agnew sat by and laughed at the spectacle.  When Baby was taken off for her noonday nap, Louisa took the girls into the parlor, another odd and pretty room, full of prints and sketches, and pictures of all sorts, some with frames, others with a knot of autumn leaves or a twist of ivy around them by way of a finish.  There was a bowl of beautiful autumn roses on the table; and, though the price of one of Mrs. Page’s damask curtains would probably have bought the whole furniture of the room, every thing was so bright and homelike and pleasant-looking that Katy’s heart warmed at the sight.  They were examining a portrait of Louisa with Daisy in her lap, painted by her father, when Mr. Agnew came in.  The girls liked his face at once.  It was fine and frank; and nothing could be prettier than to see him pick up his sweet invalid wife as if she had been a child, and carry her into the dining-room to her place at the head of the table.

Katy and Clover agreed afterward that it was the merriest dinner they had had since they left home.  Mr. Agnew told stories about painters and painting, and was delightful.  No less so was the nice gossip upstairs in Louisa’s room which followed dinner, or the afternoon frolic with Daisy, or the long evening spent in looking over books and photographs.  Altogether the day seemed only too short.  As they went out of the gate at ten o’clock, Mr. Agnew following, lo! a dark figure emerged from behind a tree and joined Clover.  It was Clarence!

“I thought I’d just walk this way,” he explained, “the house has been dreadfully dull all day without you.”

Clover was immensely flattered, but Mrs. Page’s astonishment next day knew no bounds.

“Really,” she said, “I have hopes of Clarence at last.  I never knew him volunteer to escort anybody anywhere before in his life.”

“I say,” remarked Clarence, the evening before the girls went back to school,—­“I say, suppose you write to a fellow sometimes, Clover.”

“Do you mean yourself by ’a fellow’?” laughed Clover.

“You don’t suppose I meant George Hickman or that donkey of an Eels, did you?” retorted Clarence.

“No, I didn’t.  Well, I’ve no objection to writing to a fellow, if that fellow is you, provided the fellow answers my letters.  Will you?”

“Yes,” gruffly, “but you mustn’t show ’em to any girls or laugh at my writing, or I’ll stop.  Lilly says my writing is like beetle tracks.  Little she knows about it though!  I don’t write to her!  Promise, Clover!”

“Yes, I promise,” said Clover, pleased at the notion of Clare’s proposing a correspondence of his own accord.  Next morning they all left for Hillsover.  Clarence’s friendship and the remembrance of their day with the Agnews were the pleasantest things that the girls carried away with them from their autumn vacation.