“Well, Perkins, do you know what we are to do to-morrow?  Has Grandma made any plans for us?”

“Oh, yes, Miss Marjorie; she made the plans some weeks ago, as soon as she heard you were coming.  She is giving a children’s party for you to-morrow afternoon.”

“A children’s party!  How kind of her!” And Marjorie quite forgot Grandma’s disapproving remarks about the soda water escapade.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said King.  “I expect a children’s party here will be rather grownuppish.”

“Oh, no, Master King,” said Perkins; “there are only children invited.  Young boys and girls of your own age.  I’m sure it will be a very nice party.”

“I’m sure of it, too,” said Marjorie, “and I think it was awfully good of her, as we’re to be here such a short time.”

“Well, she needn’t have said I was impertinent, when I wasn’t,” said Kitty, who still felt aggrieved at the recollection.

“Oh, never mind that, Kit,” said good-natured Marjorie.  “As long as you didn’t mean to be, it doesn’t really matter.”

When the supper was over, Rosamond was sent to bed, and the other three were allowed to sit in the library for an hour.  The ladies were dressing for dinner, but Grandpa Maynard came in and talked to them for a while.

At first they were all very grave and formal, but by a lucky chance, King hit upon a subject that recalled Grandpa’s boyish days, and the old gentleman chuckled at the recollection.

“Tell us something about when you were a boy,” said Marjorie.  “I do believe, Grandpa, you were fond of mischief!”

“I was!” and Grandpa Maynard smiled genially.  “I believe I got into more scrapes than any boy in school!”

“Then that’s where we inherited it,” said Marjorie.  “I’ve often wondered why we were so full of capers.  Was Father mischievous when he was a boy?”

“Yes, he was.  He used to drive his mother nearly crazy by the antics he cut up.  And he was always getting into danger.  He would climb the highest trees, and swim in the deepest pools; he was never satisfied to let any other boy get ahead of him.”

“That accounts for his being such a successful man,” said King.

“Yes, perhaps it does, my boy.  He was energetic and persistent and ambitious, and those qualities have stood by him all his life.”

“But, Grandpa,” said Marjorie, who had suddenly begun to feel more confidential with her grandfather, “why, then, do you and Grandma want us children to be so sedate and poky and quiet and good?  At home we’re awfully noisy, and here if we make a breath of noise we get reprimanded!”

“Well, you see, Marjorie, Grandma and I are not as young as we were, and we’re so unused now to having children about us, that I dare say we do expect them to act like grown people.  And, too, your grandmother is of a very formal nature, and she requires correct behavior from everybody.  So I hope you will try your best while you’re here not to annoy her.”