"Just as you say. You know Elinor better. But I rather incline to Bob and Jess. There is something to be said for variety, Lot." "Yes, but a year is so long. Why, Father Cameron, a year is three hundred and sixty-five whole days long and I don't know how many hours and minutes and--and seconds. The seconds are awful! Daddles darling, I never could support life away from you in a perfectly strange family for all those interminable seconds!" "Your own cousins, chicken; and they wouldn't seem strange long. I've a notion they'd help make time hustle. Better read the letter. It's a good letter." "I will--when I don't have you to talk to. What's the matter?" "Bless me, I forgot to tell Miss Reynolds! Nell's coming to-night. Wired half an hour ago." "Aunt Nell? Oh, jolly!" The slender hands clapped in joyful pantomime. "But don't worry about Miss Reynolds. _I_ will tell Anna to make a room ready. Now we can settle things talking. It's so much more satisfactory than writing." The man laughed. "Can't say no, so easily, eh, chicken?" She joined in his laugh. "There is something in that, of course, but it isn't very polite of you to insinuate that any one would _wish_ to say no to me." "I stand corrected of an error in tact. No, I can't quite see Elinor turning you down." That was the joy of these two; they were such boon companions, like brother and sister together instead of father and daughter. But now Elliott, too, remembered something. "Oh, Father! Quincy has scarlet fever!" "Scarlet fever? When did he come down?" "Just to-day. They suspected it yesterday, and Stannard came over to Phil Tracy's. To-day the doctor made sure. So Maude and Grace are going right on from the wedding to that Western ranch where they were invited. All their outfits are in the house here, but they will get new ones in New York." "Where's James?" "Uncle James went to the hotel, and Aunt Margaret, of course, is quarantined. Quincy isn't very sick. They've postponed all their house-parties for two months." "H'm. Where do they think the boy caught it?" "Not an idea. He came home from school Thursday." "Well, Cedarville will be minus Camerons for a while, won't it?" "It certainly will. Both houses closed--or Uncle James's virtually so. Do you know what Aunt Nell is coming for?" "Not the ghost of a notion. Perhaps she is going to adopt a dozen young Belgians and wants me to draw up the papers." "Mercy! I hope not a whole dozen, if I am to stay at Clover Hill with her. Half a dozen would be enough." "Want you at Clover Hill?" said Aunt Elinor, when the first greetings were over and she had heard the news. "Why, you dear child, of course I do! Or rather I should, if I were to be there myself. But I'm going to France, too." "To France!"