"Oh, with my Aunt Mabel," said Dolly. "You'll see her when we go back to
town for I'm going to have you come and visit me if you will. She's an
old maid, and she's terribly proper, and if ever I start to have any fun
she thinks it must be wicked, and tries to make me stop. But I fool
her--you just bet I do!"

They were quiet for a minute, and then Dolly broke out again.

"I don't believe Aunt Mabel ever was young!" she said fiercely. "She
doesn't act as if she'd ever been a girl. And she seems to think I ought
to be just as sober and quiet as if I were her age--and she's fifty!
Isn't that dreadful, Bessie!"

"I think you'd have a hard time acting as if you were fifty, Dolly,"
said Bessie, honestly, and trying to suppress a laugh but in vain.
"You don't, do you?"

"Of course not!" said Dolly, giggling frankly, and seemingly not at all
hurt because Bessie did not take the recital of her troubles more
seriously. "Aunt Mabel would like you, I don't mean that you're stiff
and priggish like her, but you seem quieter than most of the girls, and
more serious minded. I bet you like school."

"I do," laughed Bessie. "But I like vacations too, don't you? This is
the first time I ever really had one, though. I've always had to work
harder in summer than in winter before this."

"I think that's dreadful, Bessie. Listen! You know all about farms,
don't you? Let's go off by ourselves to-morrow and explore, shall we?"