The rest will stay a week or so longer, and our cousins, Mr.and Mrs.Keith, and their daughter, Annis, will soon follow with the expectation of spending the winter as mamma's guests." "Will you excuse me, Aunt Elsie, if I open my letter now just for a peep ?" asked Evelyn with a slight shy smile.
"No, my dear, certainly not; as I never do the like myself, but always wait patiently till the meal is over," returned the young aunt with playful irony.
"Then I'll have to ask uncle or do it without permission," said Evelyn, blushing and laughing.
"Hark to the answer coming from the chicken yard," said her uncle facetiously, as the loud crow of a cock broke in upon their talk.
"I fail to catch your meaning, uncle," said Evelyn, with another blush and smile.
"Listen!" he answered, "he will speak again presently, and tell me if he doesn't say, 'Mistress rules here.' Some one has so interpreted it, and, I think, correctly.
"Oh," exclaimed Evelyn, laughing; "then, of course, it is of no use to appeal from auntie's decisions." "No, even I generally do as I am bid," he remarked gravely.
"And I almost always," said Elsie.

"Eva, would you like to drive over to Ion with me this morning ?" "Very much indeed, Aunt Elsie," was the prompt and pleased reply.
"Mamma wishes me to carry the news of the expected arrival of my brother and his wife, and to see that all is in order for their reception," Elsie went on.
"And am I to be entirely neglected in your invitation ?" asked her husband, in a tone of deep pretended disappointment and chagrin.
"Your company will be most acceptable, Mr.Leland, if you will favor us with it," was the gay rejoinder.

"Baby shall go, too; an airing will do him good; and beside, mammy will want to see him." "Of course; for she looks upon him as a sort of great-grand child, does she not ?" said Lester.
"Either that or great-great," returned Elsie lightly.
"Who is mammy ?" asked Evelyn.
"Mamma's old nurse, who had the care of her from her birth--indeed, and of her mother also--and has nursed each one of us in turn.

Of course, we are all devotedly attached to her and she to us.

Aunt Chloe is what she is called by those who are not her nurslings." "She must be very, very old, I should think," observed Evelyn.
"She is," said Elsie, and very infirm.