mother or father, you know, Shirley," said
Richard, smiling. "You'll find Kitty Gay a little girl very much like
yourself. Show her how lovely a little girl named Shirley Willis can
be."

"We'll know eight orphans then, in a minute," declared Sarah, her
statistical mind functioning even as she helped to replace the fence
bars. "The Gays are six and you and Warren are two; so you did see an
orphan before, Shirley."

"For mercy's sake, forget the orphan part of it," begged poor Richard.
"Don't say 'orphan' once--I didn't bring you up here to look at the
Gays. They're no side show."

Rosemary laughed, then sobered instantly as a turn in the lane brought
them face to face with a tow-headed lad, carrying two pails of water.
He was about the age of Jack Welles, she decided, but infinitely
thinner and lacking Jack's solid build.

"'Lo, Dick!" he said cordially. "Want me?"

Richard introduced the three girls with more ease than Rosemary had
expected. Alec Gay was undeniably shy, but he asked them to come to
the house and meet his sister, Louisa. Richard took one pail and Alec
the other, and they went on.

"Louisa!" shouted Alec as they came in sight of a weather-beaten house
set in a fenced enclosure of rank grass where a cow grazed peacefully.

A girl appeared in the doorway, a tow-headed girl with blue eyes like
her brother's, and thin shoulders, like his, too. She wore a faded
blue dress and a black apron and looked clean and neat.

This was Louisa Gay and noting that she glanced uncertainly into the
doorway, after Richard had introduced them, Rosemary tactfully
suggested that they sit on the stoop.

"We can't stay long and it is too nice to go indoors," she said
sincerely.

"The house doesn't look very nice this morning," apologized Louisa, "to
tell the truth, everything is in a mess; but if we stay out here, the
children will come hunting for me and they're a mess, too. There isn't
much choice, either way."

She sat down beside Rosemary who kept fast hold of Shirley lest she
start an exploring tour of her own.

"Where's the Kitty girl?" asked Shirley frankly.

As she spoke a stream of children poured out of the house--or it seemed
like a stream, though when they were counted they were but four. Each
and every one of them had light hair and blue eyes like Alec and
Louisa, all were tanned and freckled and all were shouting madly. The
youngest was a baby, the oldest a year or so older than Sarah.