"Oh, dear! how I wish I had a brother!" sighed Polly, watching his boyish figure, as he sauntered away across the grass. "Yes," said Jean slowly, as she thought of the four little brothers at home, "it is nice, but it has its drawbacks, Polly. When they all want to do the same thing at the same time, and can't wait a minute, why, then it doesn't seem quite so agreeable." In the warm twilight, Mrs. Adams and Polly sat on the broad piazza. Miss Bean had taken her departure, long before, and Jean had gone home to help her mother get supper and put the younger children to bed. The birds were twittering their last sleepy good nights, and two or three little stars were faintly showing in the blue sky above the dark mountain, while scores of tiny fireflies were dotting the air below. "There, Jerusalem!" Polly was saying triumphantly, as she perched herself on the broad arm of her mother's piazza chair; "now everybody is out of the way, and I can have you all to myself." "What is it to-night?" inquired Mrs. Adams, laughing, as she pulled her light shawl over her shoulders to keep out the evening air. "Lots of things, mamma," answered Polly, with a sudden thoughtfulness; "there's been a good deal to-day." "About Molly's cousins, for instance?" asked Mrs. Adams. "Yes," replied Polly; "I don't think we want them, mamma. I know they won't fit in a bit. And Alan says he doesn't want them." "That's not quite fair of Alan," said her mother: "he oughtn't to say so without knowing anything more about them. But, Polly, you may find them pleasant friends, and like them better than you do Molly." Polly shook her head with decision. "I'm sure I shan't. But I'm afraid Molly will like them better than she does us." "Jealous, Polly?" And there was a tone of regret in her mother's voice as she went on: "I am a little disappointed in my daughter. Of course, Polly, Molly will be thrown with them a great deal, much more than with you; and, so long as they are her cousins, she will probably be fond of them. But, after all these years, can't you trust Molly's friendship enough to believe that it won't make any difference in her feeling to you, but that she can love and care for you all, at the same time?" "Sometimes I think she can, and sometimes I think she can't,'" said Polly slowly. "Once in a while, when we have had a 'scrap,' as Alan calls it, I think she doesn't care a bit about me." "Whose fault is it, when you quarrel?" asked Mrs. Adams, smoothing the short curls. "I don't think it is all Molly's fault, any more than it is all yours. If my small daughter wants her friends to care for her, she must govern that temper and study self-control." "I know that, mamma," broke in Polly impetuously; "but you don't have any idea how hard 'tis, nor how sorry I am after it is over."