“And what is Bob like?” asked her father.  “I haven’t seen him since he was a baby.”

“Bob?  Oh, he’s just plain boy; awfully nice and obliging and good-hearted and unselfish, but I don’t believe he’ll ever be President.”

“I think I shall like your two cousins,” said Kenneth, with an air of conviction.  “When are they coming?”

“I shall ask them right away, and I hope they’ll soon come.  How much longer shall you be in Vernondale?”

“Oh, I think I’m a fixture for the summer.  Aunt Locky wants me to spend my whole vacation here, and I don’t know of any good reason why I shouldn’t.”

“I’m very glad; it will be awfully nice to have you here when the twins are, and perhaps somebody else will be here, too.  I’m going to ask Nan Allen.”

“Who is she?” inquired Mr. Fairfield.

“Oh, papa, don’t you remember about her?  She is a friend of the Barlows, and lives near them in Philadelphia, and she was visiting them down at Long Island when I was there last summer.  She’s perfectly lovely.  She’s a grown-up young lady, compared to Bumble and me—­she’s about twenty-two, I think—­and I know Kenneth will lose his heart to her.  He’ll have no more use for schoolgirls.”

“Probably not,” said Kenneth; “but I’m afraid the adorable young lady will have no use for me.  She won’t if Hepworth’s around, and he usually is.  He’s always cutting me out.”

“Nothing of the sort,” said Patty staunchly.  “Mr. Hepworth is very nice, but he’s papa’s friend,”

“And whose friend am I?” said young Harper.

“You’re everybody’s friend,” said Patty, smiling at him.  “You’re just ‘Our Ken.’”

Miss Nan Allen was delighted to accept an invitation to Boxley Hall, and it was arranged that she and the Barlow twins should spend August there.

“A month is quite a long visit, Pattikins,” said her father.

“Yes, but you see, papa, I stayed there three months.  Now, if three of them stay here one month, it will be the same proportion.  And, besides, I like them, and I want them to stay a good while.  I shan’t get tired of them.”

“I don’t believe you will, but you may get tired of the care of housekeeping, with guests for so long a time.  But if you do, I shall pick up the whole tribe of you and bundle off for a trip of some sort.”

“Oh, papa, I wish you would do that.  I’d be perfectly delighted.  I’ll do my best to get tired, just so you’ll take us.”

“But if I remember your reports of your Barlow cousins, it seems to me they would not make the most desirable travelling companions.  Aren’t they the ones who were so helter-skelter, never were ready on time, never knew where things were, and, in fact, had never learned the meaning of the phrase ’Law and order’?”

“Yes, they’re the ones, and truly they are something dreadful.  Don’t you remember they had a party and forgot to send out the invitations?  And the first night I reached there, when I went to visit them, they forgot to have any bed in my room.”