ummer months there;
"the happiest months in their lives," they all declared. Now, alas! the
merry season was drawing to a close. Adele was to go to her grandfather's
home in England, Herbert to school at Eton, Nettie with her mother to New
York, and Eric was to travel in Holland and the German states with his
uncle, Dr. Ward, and his cousin, Johnny Van Rasseulger.

Such a busy day as it was to be! But just now all care was forgotten, even
to the regret at parting, in watching the absurd freaks of little Froll,
the monkey. Her real name was Frolic; but who ever heard children call a
pet by its real name?

Mrs. Hyde called to Nettie, requesting her to do an errand. At the sound
of her voice Nettie ran towards her, exclaiming,--

"O, mamma! Adele has given us such a splendid present, to take home with
us!"

"What is it, my dear?"

"I love it so dearly! It's--it's--"--here Nettie's voice trembled a
little, and her heart knew its own misgivings--"it's--Froll, mamma, the
little darling!"

"And who _is_ Froll, the little darling!"

"That dear little monkey," answered Nettie, pointing to Froll, now close
at hand.

"O," exclaimed Mrs. Hyde, retreating hastily, "I dislike monkeys, and I
cannot have one travelling with me."

"But, mamma--" said Nettie, piteously.

"You need not think of it, my dear; it is quite impossible," was the
decided reply, to Nettie's disappointment.

"But may not Eric take her?"

"Uncle Charlie must decide that question: if he has no objections to
travelling with an animal that is never out of mischief, I suppose Eric
may take charge of her."

"But then, mamma, Eric will be gone a whole long year--"

"And as you have lived nine whole long years," interrupted her mother,
smiling, "without a monkey, or a desire for one, don't you think you could
survive the separation?"

Nettie didn't then think she could; but a while after, when Froll chased
her with a paint-brush dripping wet with red paint, and then completely
spoiled a pretty landscape view that Herbert was painting for her, she
changed her mind, and decided that a voyage from Hamburg to New York with
such an uncontrollable creature would be, to say the least, inconvenient.

To be sure, papa was to meet them at the Hague, and he might be willing to
look to her safe transportation across the Atlantic; but she had not much
faith in this argument, and, making a virtue of necessity, resigned
herself with becoming grace to her mother's wi