e any little girl, and who is so pretty--not
like my dear mother in the frame, but--oh, I can't find a word, and I am
learning so many new ones, too. But one would just like to kneel at her
feet, and draw a long breath. And she took hold of my hands and we
skipped about in the hall with the new step Master Bagett taught me. And
Madam Shippen said I was 'most like a rose, and that if I became a
Friend I should be called Prim alone, since the name would be suitable.
And Madam Wetherill said I was divided, like my name. When will it be
time to go to the farm?"

"Would it be a great disappointment if thou didst not go?" he asked
gravely.

"What has happened, cousin?"

Her sweet face took instant alarm. The smiles shaped themselves to a
sudden unspoken sympathy.

"A great many things have happened." He would have liked to draw her
down to his knee as he had seen Penn hold his sister Faith and comfort
her for the loss of their mother. But Primrose did not need comforting.
He kept his arm about her and drew her nearer to him.

"Yes, a great many things. Mother's sister, Aunt Rachel Morgan, died in
March, and grandmother and the three children have come to live with us.
Grandmother is old and has mostly lost her mind. Penn is a large fellow
of his age, almost grown up, and is of great service. Rachel is fourteen
and is wise in the management of grandmother, who cannot tell one from
another and thinks my mother the elder Rachel who died. And then there
is little Faith."

"Faith? What is she like? Would you rather have her than--than me? Do
you love her most?"

A sudden jealousy flamed up in the child's heart. Since her mother had
gone she had really loved no one until she had met Andrew. Perhaps it
was largely due to the fact that he was the only sympathetic one in a
lonely life.

Andrew laughed, stirred by a sweet joy.

"I would a dozen times rather have thee, but Faith is nice and obedient
and my mother has grown fond of her. But there is something about thee,
Primrose--canst thou remember how the chickens followed thee, and the
birds and the squirrels never seemed afraid? Thou didst talk to the
robins as if thou didst understand their song. And the beady-eyed
squirrels--how they would stop and listen."

"I made a robin's song on the spinet quite by myself, one afternoon. And
the dainty Phoebe bird, and the wren with her few small notes. Do you
know, I think the wren a Quaker bird, only her gown is not quite gray