sort of cape, and she discovered that all the cloaks and most of the
sticks had names of their own. She was afraid to be left standing on
the steps alone lest any amount of animals or boys should fall on her
there, so she consented to accompany Mysie, who shuffled along in a
pair of overshoes vastly too big for her, since she had put her cousin
into the well-fitting ones. She chattered all the way.

'We do like this place so. It is the nicest we have ever been in. All
that is wanting is that papa will buy it, and then we shall never go
away again.'

It was a pleasant place, though not grand; a homely-looking, roomy,
red-brick house, covered with creepers--the Virginian one with its
leaves just beginning to be painted. There was a bright sunny garden
full of flowers in front, and then a paddock, with cows belonging to a
farmer, Mysie said. It was her ambition to have them of their own
'when papa came home,' when all good things were to happen. Behind
there were large stable-yards and offices, too large for Lady
Merrifield's one horse and one pony, and thus available for the
children's menagerie of rabbits, guinea-pigs, magpie, and the like. On
the way Mysie was only too happy to explain the family as she called
it, when she had recovered from her astonishment that Dolores, always
living in England, could not 'count up her cousins.' 'Why they always
had been shown their photographs on a Sunday evening after the Bible
pictures, and even little Primrose knew all the likeness, even of those
she had never seen.'

The catalogue of names and ages followed.

Dolores heard it with a feeling of bewilderment, and a sense that one