you. Mean old things! What did they come for?” And both the boys scowled darkly in the direction of the parlor, as Bess rose to leave them, saying laughingly,—
“Take good care of each other, and don’t get into mischief. Rob, you’d better stay with Fred until they go.” And taking a Jacqueminot rose from a vase on the table, she put it in the buttonhole of her new gray gown, and was gone, leaving the boys in solitary possession of the room, except for the great black cat that was slumbering peacefully on one end of the sofa.
“I want you to see Miss Carter, Muir,” Mr. Washburn had said, as they were putting on their hats, preparatory to starting; “she is quite an unusual young woman. She is not only attractive and rather pretty, but she knows a thing or two; and then she has a great gift for managing small boys, and making the best of them. That little dark-eyed fellow that leads the choir is her cousin, and her influence over him and two or three of the others helps out my discipline wonderfully. I don’t know how I should get along without her.”
