track us by a line of my tears!"

They found the stairs to the barn chamber, and lifted You Dirty Boy up
step by step with slow, painful effort. Kathleen ran out and put two
vases on the lowest step and ran back to the house for the other pair.
Gilbert and Nancy stood at the top of the stairs with You Dirty Boy
between them, settling where he could be easiest reached if he had to be
brought down for any occasion,--an unwelcome occasion that was certain
to occur sometime in the coming years.

Suddenly they heard their names called in a tragic whisper! "_Gilbert!
Nancy! Quick! Cousin Ann's at the front gate_!"

There was a crash! No human being, however self-contained, could have
withstood the shock of that surprise; coming as it did so swiftly, so
unexpectedly, and with such awful inappropriateness. Gilbert and Nancy
let go of You Dirty Boy simultaneously, and he fell to the floor in two
large fragments, the break occurring so happily that the mother and the
washcloth were on one half, and the boy on the other,--a situation long
desired by the boy, to whom the parting was most welcome!

"She got off at the wrong station," panted Kathleen at the foot of the
stairs, "and had to be driven five miles, or she would have got here as
she planned, an hour before we did. She's come to help us settle, and
says she was afraid mother would overdo. Did you drop anything? Hurry
down, and I'll leave the vases here, in among the furniture; or shall I
take back two of them to show that they were our first thought?--And oh!
I forgot. She's brought Julia! Two more to feed, and not enough beds!"

Nancy and Gilbert confronted each other.