“How could we go away and leave the place to the mercy of all those young ones?” she demanded.  “We’d come home and find them all sick, and the house burned down.”

“Not a bit of fear of it,” scoffed Uncle Roger.  “Felicity is as good a housekeeper as you are; and I shall be here to look after them all, and keep them from burning the house down.  You’ve been promising Edward for years to visit him, and you’ll never have a better chance.  The haying is over and harvest isn’t on, and Alec needs a change.  He isn’t looking well at all.”

I think it was Uncle Roger’s last argument which convinced Aunt Janet.  In the end she decided to go.  Uncle Roger’s house was to be closed, and he and Peter and the Story Girl were to take up their abode with us.

We were all delighted.  Felicity, in especial, seemed to be in seventh heaven.  To be left in sole charge of a big house, with three meals a day to plan and prepare, with poultry and cows and dairy and garden to superintend, apparently furnished forth Felicity’s conception of Paradise.  Of course, we were all to help; but Felicity was to “run things,” and she gloried in it.

The Story Girl was pleased, too.

“Felicity is going to give me cooking lessons,” she confided to me, as we walked in the orchard.  “Isn’t that fine?  It will be easier when there are no grown-ups around to make me nervous, and laugh if I make mistakes.”

Uncle Alec and aunts left on Monday morning.  Poor Aunt Janet was full of dismal forebodings, and gave us so many charges and warnings that we did not try to remember any of them; Uncle Alec merely told us to be good and mind what Uncle Roger said.  Aunt Olivia laughed at us out of her pansy-blue eyes, and told us she knew exactly what we felt like and hoped we’d have a gorgeous time.

“Mind they go to bed at a decent hour,” Aunt Janet called back to Uncle Roger as she drove out of the gate.  “And if anything dreadful happens telegraph us.”

Then they were really gone and we were all left “to keep house.”

Uncle Roger and Peter went away to their work.  Felicity at once set the preparations for dinner a-going, and allotted to each of us his portion of service.  The Story Girl was to prepare the potatoes; Felix and Dan were to pick and shell the peas; Cecily was to attend the fire; I was to peel the turnips.  Felicity made our mouths water by announcing that she was going to make a roly-poly jam pudding for dinner.

I peeled my turnips on the back porch, put them in their pot, and set them on the stove.  Then I was at liberty to watch the others, who had longer jobs.  The kitchen was a scene of happy activity.  The Story Girl peeled her potatoes, somewhat slowly and awkwardly—­for she was not deft at household tasks; Dan and Felix shelled peas and tormented Pat by attaching pods to his ears and tail; Felicity, flushed and serious, measured and stirred skilfully.