ard won't help meet him, he ought to keep clear out
of the way. But there's one thing about it, boys, you must, you really
must, stop talking so much slang. It's bad enough with us girls, and I'm
getting to use it as much as you do; but you'll scare Charlie to pieces
if you talk so much of it."

"Does our right worshipful brother maintain himself in his usual health
and spirits?--is that the style, Allie?" asked Howard, as he took off
his cap with a flourish, and bowed low before some imaginary personage.

"I caught Allie studying the dictionary, yesterday morning," said Grant,
turning to face them once more. "She had a piece of paper in her lap,
with concatenation and peripatetic and nostalgia written on it, and I
supposed she was studying her spelling lesson, but now I see,--she was
just making up a sentence to say to him. Speak up loud, Allie, so we can
hear."

"You'd better stay here and listen," said Allie. "But there's the train,
see, just coming round the curve down the canon. Off with you, if you
really are going to be so silly!"

The boys whirled around hastily, to assure themselves that it was no
false alarm; then they left her to wait alone, while they settled
themselves behind a pile of great wooden boxes which half filled the
upper end of the platform. Allie watched them arrange themselves at
their ease; then, when they were quite hidden from view, she turned back
to look at the train as it rushed up the valley towards her, sending
along the rails before it a fierce throbbing which kept time to her own
leaping pulse.

In spite of her light talk and laughter, Allie was conscious of a keen
sense of excitement, as she stood waiting to receive her cousin. He was
the only child of Mrs. Burnam's only brother; and now, at thirteen, he
was left alone in the world, doubly orphaned, and with no near relatives
save this one aunt, to whose care his dying mother had intrusted her
boy. All that Allie knew had only served to interest her in the young
stranger; his love for music and his unusual talent for it, his former
life spent in a luxurious city home, even his present loneliness had
touched her girlish heart with pity, and made her resolve to render his
new life pleasant to him, in spite of the possible teasing he might have
to undergo from the boys. And then, while she was determined to become
his champion at any cost, there was always the delightful possibility
that he might be a pleasant addition to their lit