They were a merry party, casting aside their cares and years, and harking back to joyous boyhood and girlhood once more.  James had a family of rosy lads and lasses; Margaret brought her two blue-eyed little girls; Ralph’s dark, clever-looking son accompanied him, and Malcolm brought his, a young man with a resolute face, in which there was less of boyishness than in his father’s, and the eyes of a keen, perhaps a hard bargainer.  The two cousins were the same age to a day, and it was a family joke among the Monroes that the stork must have mixed the babies, since Ralph’s son was like Malcolm in face and brain, while Malcolm’s boy was a second edition of his uncle Ralph.

To crown all, Aunt Isabel came, too—­a talkative, clever, shrewd old lady, as young at eighty-five as she had been at thirty, thinking the Monroe stock the best in the world, and beamingly proud of her nephews and nieces, who had gone out from this humble, little farm to destinies of such brilliance and influence in the world beyond.

I have forgotten Robert.  Robert Monroe was apt to be forgotten.  Although he was the oldest of the family, White Sands people, in naming over the various members of the Monroe family, would add, “and Robert,” in a tone of surprise over the remembrance of his existence.

He lived on a poor, sandy little farm down by the shore, but he had come up to James’ place on the evening when the guests arrived; they had all greeted him warmly and joyously, and then did not think about him again in their laughter and conversation.  Robert sat back in a corner and listened with a smile, but he never spoke.  Afterwards he had slipped noiselessly away and gone home, and nobody noticed his going.  They were all gayly busy recalling what had happened in the old times and telling what had happened in the new.

Edith recounted the successes of her concert tours; Malcolm expatiated proudly on his plans for developing his beloved college; Ralph described the country through which his new railroad ran, and the difficulties he had had to overcome in connection with it.  James, aside, discussed his orchard and his crops with Margaret, who had not been long enough away from the farm to lose touch with its interests.  Aunt Isabel knitted and smiled complacently on all, talking now with one, now with the other, secretly quite proud of herself that she, an old woman of eighty-five, who had seldom been out of White Sands in her life, could discuss high finance with Ralph, and higher education with Malcolm, and hold her own with James in an argument on drainage.

The White Sands school teacher, an arch-eyed, red-mouthed bit a girl—­a Bell from Avonlea—­who boarded with the James Monroes, amused herself with the boys.  All were enjoying themselves hugely, so it is not to be wondered at that they did not miss Robert, who had gone home early because his old housekeeper was nervous if left alone at night.

He came again the next afternoon.  From James, in the barnyard, he learned that Malcolm and Ralph had driven to the harbor, that Margaret and Mrs. James had gone to call on friends in Avonlea, and that Edith was walking somewhere in the woods on the hill.  There was nobody in the house except Aunt Isabel and the teacher.