Left alone, Brother and Sister sat down on the front stairs.  Molly was out and Daddy Morrison and Dick had gone to a lodge meeting.  Jimmie was studying up in his room and Ralph was out in the barn putting some things away.

“There’s that old clock!” said Brother crossly as the Grandfather’s clock on the stair landing boomed the hour.

Eight slow, deep strokes—­eight o’clock.

Sister settled herself more firmly against the banister railings.

“I’m not going to bed,” she announced flatly.  “If everybody can go to the movies ’cept me, I don’t think it’s fair, so there!”

Just how she expected to even things up by refusing to go to bed Sister did not explain.  Perhaps she didn’t know.  Anyway, Brother said he wasn’t going to bed either.  Ralph came in at half-past eight to find them both playing checkers on the living-room floor.

“Thought you went to bed at eight o’clock,” said Ralph, surprised.  “Mother say you might stay up tonight?”

“No, she didn’t,” admitted Brother, “but she went to the movies with Louise and Grace.  Everybody is having fun and we’re not.”

Ralph didn’t scold.  He merely closed up the checkerboard and put it away in the book-case drawer with the box of checkers.  Then he lifted Sister to his lap and put an arm around Brother.

“Poor chicks, you do feel abused; don’t you?” he said comfortably.  “But I’ll tell you something—­you wouldn’t like going to the movies at night; you would go to sleep after a little while and lose half the pictures.  Now suppose I take you this Saturday afternoon.  How will that do?”

“Will you take us, Ralph?” cried Sister.  “Down to the Majestic?”

This was the largest motion picture theatre in Ridgeway.

“I’ll take you both to the Majestic next Saturday afternoon,” promised Ralph, “if you will go to bed without any more fuss tonight.”

Both children were delighted with the thought of an afternoon’s enjoyment with Ralph and they trotted up to bed with him as pleasantly as though going to bed were a pleasure.  Grownups will tell you it is, but when you are five and six this is difficult to believe.

Unfortunately Brother and Sister were doomed to another disappointment.  Before Saturday afternoon came, Ralph remembered that he had promised to play tennis with a friend and he could not break the engagement, because to do so would spoil the afternoon for eight or ten people who counted on him for games.

“I’m just as sorry as I can be,” Ralph told Brother and Sister earnestly.  “I don’t see how I could forget I promised Fred Holmes to play with him.  If you want to wait another week for me, I’ll give you the money for ice-cream sodas.”

Grandmother Hastings and Mother Morrison had gone to the city, the girls had company, Molly was lying down with a headache—­there seemed to be no one to take the children to the matinee.