"Don't you think I'd better take the car and run down for Julia before dark?" she said. "I think she'll be about ready to come back with me by this time, and I need her early in the morning if I'm going to begin cleaning house." "Better wait one more night," said Herbert stolidly. "Let her get her fill of staying alone nights. It'll do her good. We don't want her to be high and mighty when she gets here. I'm boss here, and she's got to understand that. She's so mighty independent, you know, it's important she should find that out right at the start. I'm not going to have her get bossy with these children, either. They aren't her children." Four pairs of keen little Robinson eyes took in this saying with quick intelligence, and four stolid sets of shoulders straightened up importantly with four uplifted saucy chins. They would store these remarks away for future reference when the aunt in question arrived on the scene. They would come in well, they knew, for they had had experience with her in times past. "Aunt Jule ain't goin' to boss me," swaggered the youngest. "Ner me, neither!" "Ner me!" "I guess she wouldn't _dast_ try it on _me_!" boasted the eldest. CHAPTER III "You haven't asked us what we came for," opened up Allison as soon as everybody was served with chicken, mashed potato, succotash, stewed tomatoes, biscuits, pickles, and apple-sauce. "I thought you came for cookies," said Julia Cloud, with a mischievous twinkle in her gray eyes. "Hung one on me, didn't you?" said Allison, laughing. "But that wasn't all. Guess again." "Perhaps you came to see me," she suggested shyly. "Right you are! But that's not all, either. That wouldn't last much longer than the cookies. Guess again." "Oh, I couldn't!" said Julia Cloud, growing suddenly stricken with the thought of their going. "I give it up." "Well, then I'll tell you. You see we've come East to college, both of us. Of course I've had my freshman year, but the Kid's just entering. We haven't decided which college it's to be yet, but it's to be co-ed, we know that much, because we're tired of being separated. When one hasn't but two in the family and has been apart for five years, one appreciates a home, I tell you that. And so we've decided we want a home. We're not just going to college to live there in the usual way; we're going to take a house, live like real folks, and go to school every day. We want a fireplace and a cooky-jar of our own; a place to bring our friends and have good times. But most of all we want a mother, and we've come all this way to coax you to come and live with us, play house, you know, as you used to do down on the mossy rocks with broken bits of china for dishes and acorns for cups and saucers. Play house and you be mother. Will you do it, Cloudy Jewel? It means a whole lot to us, and we'll try to play fair and make you have a good time." Julia Cloud put her hand on her heart, and lifted her bewildered eyes to the boy's eager face.