for a lunch,--anything in sight, and we'll get ready while Mom
Beck finds our skates."

Rob rubbed his ears apprehensively. "I'd as soon beard the lion in his
den as Aunt Cindy in her kitchen. She's never forgiven my early thefts."

"Go on, goosey," laughed Lloyd. "Don't you know that since you're
'growed up,' as Aunt Cindy says, she swears by you? I heard her tell Mom
Beck last night she reckoned she'd have to make a batch of little sugah
hah't cakes right away, for Mistah Rob would be coming prowling round
her cooky jah."

"Am I growed up?" asked Rob gravely, throwing back his shoulders and
looking into the mirror at the tall reflection it showed him.

"You are in inches and ells," laughed Lloyd, "but you're not always six
feet tall in yoah actions."

"It's only when I am in your society that I appear so juvenile,"
retorted Rob. "When I'm away at school with the other fellows, I feel
and act as old as Daddy, but when I'm back home, where you all seem to
expect me to be a kid, I naturally adjust myself to that role just to be
companionable and obliging. You would be afraid of me if I were to turn
out my whiskers and stand back on my dignity. You know you would."

"Don't try it, Bobby," advised Lloyd. "It wouldn't be becoming. Trot out
to Aunt Cindy and get the lunch. That's a good little man. We'll be
ready in just a few minutes."

Even in her baby days, Lloyd had been patronizing at times to her
good-natured playmate, ordering him about with a princess-like right
that always seemed part of the game. So now he laughingly shrugged his
shoulders and started to the kitchen, while Lloyd followed Betty
up-stairs to change her slippers for heavy-soled walking-boots.

A few minutes later the three were hurrying down the avenue to the gate,
under the bare windswept branches of the locusts.

"Aunt Cindy had disappeared temporarily," said Rob. "There wasn't a soul
in the kitchen, so I rummaged around till I found this old basket, and
filled it with a little of everything in sight. It is a long way to the
creek. We'll be ready to eat nails by the time we tramp over there in
this snappy weather."

"It is snappy," agreed Lloyd. "Betty, yoah cheeks are as red as fiah."

The rosy face under the brown tam-o'-shanter smiled back at her. "So are
yours. Aren't they, Rob? They are as red as her coat."

"Hello!" exclaimed Rob, noticing for the first time the long red coat
that Lloyd wore. "That's something new, isn't it? I tho