Anne looked up with shining, affectionate eyes. "I'm most big now, you
know, Mrs. Patterson," she said. "I'm eight years old and going on nine.
I love to be your girl, but--" her lip quivered--"I do wish I knew where
Uncle Carey was."

"Suppose, Anne, you write to some of your relatives," suggested Miss
Drayton,--"any whose addresses you know. The Aunt Charity you speak of
so often--where does she live? Is she your mother's sister or your
father's?"

Anne's laughter shook the teardrops from her lashes. "Why, Miss
Drayton," she replied, "I thought you knew. Aunt Charity is black. She
was my nurse. She and Uncle Richard--he's her husband--lived with us
from the time I can remember."

"Oh!" said Miss Drayton. "But cousins? Those people you talk about and
call cousin--Marjorie and Patsy and Dorcas and Dick and Cornelius and
the others--they are real cousins, aren't they? Do you know how near?
First? or second? or third?"

Anne looked perplexed. "There are a lot of cousins. Yes, Miss Drayton,
they're real. I don't know what kin any of them are. I call them
'cousin' because mother did. They lived near home--five or six or ten
miles away. And they'd spend a day or week with us. And we'd go to see
them."

"Oh! Virginia cousins!" Mrs. Patterson laughed. "Some time you and I'll
go to see them and take Honey-Sweet, won't we?--Sarah, Sarah! Let's not
make any more investigations. Wait, like our old friend, Mr. Micawber,