Elise considered a moment.  “Well,” she said, finally, “I’ll let you off from your trade if Kitty will let me off from mine.”

“No, sir!” answered Kitty.  “A trade’s a trade.  I want that paper boy doll.”

“But it’s your regular turn,” coaxed Elise, “and I’d much rather go down to the depot to meet the girls than go riding.”

“So would I,” said Kitty, spurring the procession of ants to faster speed with her slipper toe.  Then she sat up and considered the matter a moment.

“Oh, well,” she said, presently, “I don’t care, after all.  If it will oblige you any I’ll let you off, and take the pony myself.”

“Oh, thank you, sister,” cried Elise.

“They’ll only be at the depot a few minutes,” continued the wily Kitty.  “So I’ll drive down to meet them in style in the cart, and then I’ll go up to Locust with them, beside the carriage, and hear all about the trip first of anybody.”

“I wish I’d thought of that,” said Elise, a shade of disappointment in her big dark eyes.

“I’ll tell you,” proposed Allison, enthusiastically, “We’ll all go down in the pony-cart to meet them together.  That would be the nicest way to do.”

“Oh!” was Kitty’s cool reply, “I had thought of going by for Katy or Corinne.”  Then, seeing the disappointment in the faces opposite, she added, “But maybe I might change my mind.  Have you got anything to trade for a chance to go?”

This transfer of possessions which they carried on was like a continuous game, of which they never tired, because of its endless variety.  It was a source of great amusement to the older members of the family.

“It is a mystery to me,” said Miss Allison, “how they manage to keep track of their property, and remember who is the owner.  I have known a doll or a dish to change hands half a dozen times in the course of a forenoon.”

Elise promptly offered the paper boy doll again, which was promptly accepted.  Allison had nothing to offer which Kitty considered equivalent to a seat in the cart, but by a roundabout transfer the trade was finally made.  Allison gave Elise the amount of purple and yellow paint she needed for the Princess Pansy’s ball gown, in return for which Elise gave her a piece of spangled gauze which Kitty had long had an eye upon.  Allison in turn handed the gauze to Kitty for her right to a seat in the pony-cart, and the affair was thus happily settled to the satisfaction of all parties.

“It isn’t that we are selfish with each other,” Allison had retorted, indignantly, one day when Corinne remarked that she didn’t see how sisters who loved each other could be so particular about everything.  “It’s only with our toys and the cart that we do that way.  It’s a kind of game that we’ve played always, and we think it’s lots of fun.”

So it happened that that afternoon, when the train stopped at Lloydsboro Valley, the first thing the Little Colonel saw was the pony-cart drawn close to the platform.  Then three little girls in white dresses and fresh ribbons, smiling broadly under their big flower-wreathed hats, sprang out to give them a warm welcome home, with enthusiastic hugs and kisses.