Agnes nodded again, and they were gone. Many a time during the short ride did Agnes take out of her little muff the paper in which her needle-case for her mother was rolled up, to see if it was all safe; and she never let go for a moment of the basket in which were some toys for Lewie, which she and her cousins had purchased at the village. As she drove up the road from the gate to her mother’s house, it seemed to her so long since she had been away, that she expected to see great changes. She had never been from home so long before, and a great deal had happened in that fort night. Mrs. Elwyn was reading again; indeed, she had resumed that very yellow-covered book, the reading of which Lewie’s sickness had interrupted; so she had not much time for a greeting for Agnes, though she did allow her to kiss her cheek, and of course laid aside her book, out of compliment to Mr. Wharton. But little Lewie, who was sitting in his cradle, surrounded by toys, was in perfect ecstasies at the return of Agnes. He stretched his little arms towards her; and as she sprang towards him, and stooped to kiss him, he threw them around her neck, and clasped his little hands together, as if determined never to let her go again. “Sister come! sister come!” he exclaimed over and over again, with the greatest glee; “sister stay with Lewie now.” “Sister will stay a little while,” said Agnes, kissing over and over again her beautiful little brother. “No, sister _stay_!—sister shall not go!” said Lewie, in the best manner in which he could express it; but exactly _how_, we must be excused from making known to the reader, having a great horror of _baby-talk_ in books. “But I _must_ go, darling; all my things are at uncle’s, and I want to get some books cousin Emily is going to give me; but I will come back very soon to stay with Lewie.” “No! sister _shall_ not go!” was still the cry; and Mrs. Elwyn settled the matter by saying: “Agnes, if Lewie wants you here so much, you may as well take off your things; you cannot return to Brook Farm; besides, I want you to amuse Lewie.” Agnes thought of some of the consequences of her endeavors to amuse Lewie, and sighed. “If your mother insists upon your remaining, Agnes,” said her uncle, “I will bring over your things, and Emily shall come with me, to bring the books, and tell you how to study.” “Oh, thank you, dear uncle!” said Agnes, her face brightening at once. In the first scene in which our little hero is introduced to the reader, he certainly does not appear to advantage, as few persons would in the first stages of a fever. He was not always so hard to please, or so recklessly destructive, as he was that day; and had an intimation ever been conveyed to his mind, that it was a possible thing for any desire of his to remain ungratified, he might have grown up less supremely selfish than he did.