"Never mind Deniston," cried Clover, with a rapturous squeeze. "Let us
play that he doesn't exist, for a little while. We have got you now, and
we mean to keep you."

"How pleasant you look!" said Rose, glancing up the locust walk toward the
house, which wore a most inviting and hospitable air, with doors and
windows wide open, and the soft wind fluttering the vines and the white
curtains. "Ah, there comes Katy now." She ran forward to meet her while
Clover followed with little Rose.

"Let me det down, pease," said that young lady,--the first remark she had
made. "I tan walk all by myself. I am not a baby any more."

"_Will_ you hear her talk?" cried Katy, catching her up. "Isn't it
wonderful? Rosebud, who am I, do you think?"

"My Aunt Taty, I dess, betause you is so big. Is you mawwied yet?"

"No, indeed. Did you think I would get 'mawwied' without you? I have been
waiting for you and mamma to come and help me."

"Well, we is here," in a tone of immense satisfaction. "Now you tan."

The larger Rose meanwhile was making acquaintance with the others. She
needed no introductions, but seemed to know by instinct which was each boy
and each girl, and to fit the right names to them all. In five minutes she
seemed as much at home as though she had spent her life in Burnet. They
bore her into the house in a sort of triumph, and upstairs to the blue
bedroom, which Katy and Clover had vacated for her; and such a hubbub of