"And we'll soon get the ground fenced in and let you spend your leisure time, and exercise your taste and ingenuity in beautifying it," said their father. "And may we all help plan the house?" asked Rupert. Mr. Keith smiled, a kindly good-natured smile, with some amusement in it too. "You may all make suggestions; it is to be our house:--not the parents' only, but the children's, too." [Illustration] Chapter Tenth. "Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene." --YOUNG. "OH, Rhody Jane, Rhody Jane, I say just come an' look!" "Look at what, Emmaret? you're always makin' a fuss about nothin'," returned Miss Lightcap scornfully, but nevertheless, stepping very promptly, plate and dishcloth in hand, to the front door whence the hasty summons had come. "'Tain't nothin' this time," Emmaretta went on; "they're agoin' to Sunday school, them Keith girls, and just see how they're dressed up!" "Did you ever see anything so fine?" chorused Minerva; "sech lovely dresses; and black silk aprons with colored lace onto 'em. Oh my! I wish I had one like 'em!" "Maybe you shall some o' these days when your pop gits rich," said her mother, who was gazing from the window. "But the bonnets is what takes me. Did you notice 'em, Rhoda Jane? they're gimp with blue ribbings and blue flowers." "And the white and red in their faces makes them powerful becoming," remarked Gotobed, standing just outside. But he turned his head the other way, shamefacedly, as Mildred, looking sweet and fair in white muslin and pink ribbons, followed her younger sisters into the street, and sent a casual glance in his direction. "Don't she think she's some!" said Rhoda Jane enviously. "And so she is; she looks like a posey," said Gotobed. "Is that the grandmother? the old lady walking with Mr. Keith." "No; Viny Apple says she's Mrs. Keith's aunt; and talks in the funniest way sometimes;--gets things hind part before--telling her to make up the floors and sweep the beds, and the like. "There they're all out o' sight. I guess the mother's stayin' to home with the baby; Viny said she wasn't agoin' to, and I s'pose she's up stairs primpin'." "And that's what you'd ought to be doin' 'forelong, if you're goin' to meetin', Rhoda Jane," observed Mrs. Lightcap, drawing in her head. "Hurry up now with them dishes. And you children walk right in here and hunt up your Sunday things, and wash your hands and faces and comb your hair; it'll be meetin' time 'fore we know it." A narrow foot-path, bordered on each side by grass still wet with dew, led past the grove of saplings to the little church whither the Keiths were bound. Mildred, lifting her white skirts daintily, and warning her sisters and brothers of the danger of wet and soiled shoes, should they step aside from the beaten track, picked her way with careful steps, rejoicing in the fact that the distance was not great.