"Never mind about any breakfast," replied Mary Jane continuing the joke, "I don’t somehow seem hungry for anything this morning Anything _more_ you might say!" "Then you slip into your clothes as fast as ever you can," said Cousin Louise, "and run out to the barn. John’s been watching his favorite hens since he first got up in hopes there would be eggs for you to gather before train time." It didn’t take Mary Jane long to dress and as Mrs. Merrill came in just at the right time to brush her hair and put on her hair bow, she was soon out in the barn lot with Alice and John. With diligent hunting the three children discovered four eggs by the time that John’s father called to them that it was time to go to the train. "You take ’em with you in your pocket," said John hospitably giving his little cousin all four eggs. "You take ’em ’cause they’re good and I’ll let you have ’em." Mary Jane took them gratefully. She had never been particularly fond of eggs but John’s eggs, like grandpa’s eggs, tasted awfully good and she was quite willing to carry four home. She promised faithfully to carry them all the way to Chicago so her father could taste one. "That’ll make one for each of us, ’cause there’s four of us," she told John as she put the fourth one in her second pocket. But when the children got back to the house Mrs. Merrill inquired into the cause of the bulging pockets and out came the eggs—to stay in Marshfield. "Why Mary Jane," said her mother, "you’ve stones, all those white stones you gathered on the beach last night, you know, and stones and eggs don’t mix very well, you’d find. Then we’re going ’way up to Rye Beach for Sunday, and you’ll have lots to carry as it is. And there’s no use taking the eggs away from John just to run the risk of breaking them, is there?" Mary Jane agreed that there was no use of that. And with John’s promise that next time she came she could have four eggs—not necessarily these same eggs however—for her very own, she was satisfied to put the eggs in the ice-box and wash her hands ready to go to the train. The little cousins hated to leave each other; they were just getting well acquainted and were planning all sorts of fun they could do together. But Mrs. Merrill thought that Mary Jane, and Alice too, had had such a very busy week that they had better have a very quiet week-end. So as Uncle Hal had friends outside of Boston he wanted to see before leaving for his home in the middle west, it was decided that Mrs. Merrill and the girls go up to a quiet little hotel at Rye Beach and spend Sunday resting and loafing, and that they meet in Boston again on Monday to finish up the sightseeing and visiting. "You come and see me again," shouted John, as the girls climbed aboard their train half an hour later. "Don’t you forget to come to see me and get your eggs!"