nine o’clock!” said Dolly, opening the door, to make sure she had heard aright. “Well, if this isn’t the queerest house! Hurry up, Dick, and brush your hair, and we’ll go down and see what’s the matter. I know they haven’t had breakfast, for the kitchen range was all full of cereals and things.”
A few moments later, two neat and well-brushed children tripped gaily downstairs. They went into the library, where their two aunts, nearly in a state of collapse, were reposing in armchairs.
“Good-morning, aunties,” said the twins, blithely. “Are we late?”
Miss Abbie gasped and closed her eyes, at the astonishing sight, but Miss Rachel, who was of a different nature, felt all her anxiety turn to exasperation, and she said, sternly:
“You naughty children! Where have you been?”
“Why, we just got up early, and went to look around the place,” volunteered Dolly, “and we didn’t know it got late so soon.”
“But where were you? We’ve searched the place over.”
“We went to the woods,” said Dick. “You see, Aunt Abbie, I felt as if I must screech a little, and we thought if we stayed too near the house, we might wake you up. It was awful early then. I don’t see how nine o’clock came so soon! Did we keep breakfast back? I’m sorry.”
“Why did you want to screech?” said Miss Abbie, quickly. “Are you homesick?”
“Oh, no! I mean screech for joy. Just shout, you know, for fun, and jump around, and turn somersaults. I always do those things when I’m glad. But as it turned out, we couldn’t, very much, for we were watching for fairies, and then for squirrels, so we had to be quiet after all.”
“And so you wanted to shout for joy, did you?” asked Aunt Rachel, much mollified at the compliments they paid so unconsciously.
“Oh, yes’m! Everything is so beautiful, and so – so sort of enchanted.”
“Enchanted?”
“Yes; full of fairies, and sprites. The woods, you know, and the pond, and the fountain, – oh, Dana Dene is the finest place I ever saw!”
Dick’s enthusiasm was so unfeigned, and his little face shone with such intense happiness, that Miss Rachel hadn’t the heart to scold him after all. So, resolving to tell the twins later of the trouble they had caused, she went away to tell Delia to send in breakfast, and to tell Michael to go and find Patrick, for the twins had returned.
“You see,” explained Dolly, as they sat at breakfast, “we went out of the house at half-past seven, by the big, hall clock. And I thought then we’d stay an hour, and get back in time to fix up before we saw you. We’re not very good at keeping clean.”
“So I see,” said Aunt Abbie, glancing at several grass stains and a zigzag tear that disfigured Dolly’s frock.
“Yes’m; so we ’most always try to get in to meals ahead of time, and that ’lows us to spruce up some.”
“We try to,” said Dick, honestly, “but we don’t always do it.”
“No,” returned Dolly, calmly; “’most never. But isn’t it ’stonishing how fast the time goes when you think there’s plenty?”
“It is,” said Aunt Rachel, a little grimly. “And now that you’re to live here, you’ll have to mend your ways, about being late, for I won’t have tardiness in my house.”
“All right,” said Dolly, cheerfully; “I’ll hunt up my watch. It doesn’t go very well, except when it lies on its face; but if I put it in my pocket upside down, maybe it’ll go.”
“It must be a valuable watch,” remarked Aunt Abbie.
“Yes’m, it is. Auntie Helen gave it to me for a good-by gift, but I looked at it so often, that I thought it would be handier to wear it hanging outside, like a locket, you know. Well, I did, and then it banged into everything I met. And the chain caught on everything, and the watch got dented, and the crystal broke, and one hand came off. But it was the long hand, so as long as the hour hand goes all right, I can guess at the time pretty good. If I’d just had it with me this morning, we’d been all right. I’m real sorry we were late.”
Aunt Rachel smiled, but it was rather a grim smile.
“I don’t set much store by people who are sorry,” she said; “what I like, are people who don’t do wrong things the second time. If you are never late to breakfast again, that will please me more than being sorry for this morning’s escapade.”
“I’ll do both,” said Dolly, generously, and indeed, the twins soon learned to be prompt at meals, which is a habit easily acquired, if one wishes to acquire it.
CHAPTER IV
GARDENS
“Now, children,” said Aunt Rachel, as they all went into the library, after breakfast, “you may play around as you choose, but I don’t want you to go off the premises without permission. No more wading in the brook, and coming home looking disreputable. You may go to our wood, or anywhere on the place, and stay as long as you like, provided you are here and properly tidy at meal-times But outside the gates, without permission, you must not go: Can I trust you?”
“Yes, indeed, Aunt Rachel,” said Dick; “I’m sure we don’t want to go anywhere else, with all this beautiful place to play in. Why, we haven’t half explored it yet. Pat says there are thirty acres! Think of that!”
“Yes, it’s a fine old place,” said Miss Rachel, with justifiable pride in her ancestral home. “And I’m glad to have you young people in it, if you’ll only behave yourselves, and not keep us everlastingly in hot water.”
“We do want to be good, Auntie,” said Dolly, in her sweet way; “and if we’re bad a few times, just till we learn your ways, you know, you’ll forgive us, won’t you?”
Pretty little Dolly had a wheedlesome voice, and a winning smile, and Miss Rachel found it difficult to speak sternly, when the big, dark eyes looked into her face so lovingly.
“Yes, I’m sure you want to be good, my dears, and also, we want to do the right thing by you. So we’ll learn each other’s ways, and I’m sure we’ll get along beautifully.”
Miss Rachel was not used to children, and she talked to them as if they were as grown-up as herself, but Dick and Dolly understood, and sat patiently while she talked, though, in truth, they were impatient to get away, and run outdoors again.
“I shall send you to school,” went on Miss Rachel, “but not for a week or two yet. I want to learn you myself a little better first.”
“Yes’m,” said Dolly, who was equally well pleased to go to school or to stay at home. But Dick wanted to go.
“Let us go pretty soon, won’t you, Auntie?” he said; “for I want to get acquainted with the Heatherton fellows.”
“Boys, Dick,” corrected Aunt Abbie, who was beginning to think the twins rather careless of their diction.
“Yes’m, I mean boys. Are there any who live near here?”
Miss Rachel pursed her lips together.
“The Middletons live in the place next to this,” she began, and Dolly broke in:
“Oh, that pretty place, with the stone pillars at the gate?”
“Yes,” went on her aunt. “But Mrs. Middleton and we are not – that is – ”
“Oh, you’re not good friends, is that it?” volunteered Dick.
“Well, yes; I suppose that is it. You children are too young to understand, but let it be enough for you that I prefer you should not play with the little Middletons. There are other neighbours equally pleasant for your acquaintance.”
“All right, Auntie,” agreed Dick. “Cut out the Middletons. And now mayn’t we run out