The boats rocked, and danced on the little waves that were only ripples on the surface, and Polly was about to use the switch harder in an attempt to make a hurricane when they heard Uncle John calling: 

“Rose!  Rose!”

“Oh, he’s calling me,” cried Rose, and lifting the little boats from the water they ran back to the driveway.

A few weeks earlier Rose would have found it hard to leave Polly, and she did regret it, but the fact that Uncle John would be with her on the way back to Aunt Rose made it easier.

Then there was his promise, that only he and her own little self knew about!

And later she was to visit Polly!  Oh, these were pleasant things to think of!

The “Good-byes” were said, Mrs. Sherwood had urged Rose to come a little later to visit Polly, Uncle John had agreed to call whenever Rose was at Sherwood Hall, Mr. Sherwood had promised to drive over to call upon the master of “The Cliffs” and enjoy a sail on the Dolphin, and Rose, as they drove away, spoke the thought that told of her happiness.

“I feel as if they were my own relatives,” she said, “and oh, Uncle John, isn’t it different from the way it was when I lived here with Aunt Judith.  Then I felt so very poor, because I had only one person that was really my own and she didn’t,—­need a little girl.  Now I have Aunt Rose and Aunt Lois and you, and you all want me.”

“We need you, dear little Rose, and especially do I need you.”

“And you said perhaps, just perhaps, you could—­” She paused.

“I said I should try to arrange things so that I could be with you a part of each year.

“I think I can manage it, little Rose, if you say nothing about it until I tell you that you may.”

“I’ll keep it,” said Rose, “you’ll see how I’ll keep it!”

On the way down the avenue they stopped at Aunt Judith’s cottage.

Repeated raps at the door brought no response, however, and just as they turned to go, Gyp, the ever present Gyp, howled a bit of news from his perch on the roof of the hen coop.

“Say!  ’Taint no use ter pound on that ’ere door.  She ain’t to home, ’cause she’s somewhere else!  I seen her go out.  She had a basket on her head, an’ a bunnit on her arm!  No, a bunnit on her, oh—­pshaw!  I do’no’ how ter say it!  Heigh-o-dingerty-dingty-dum!”

He had done the usual thing.  Whenever embarrassed Gyp took to the woods.

Uncle John looked after the flying figure, and laughed when Gyp paused in the middle of the field to turn a somersault before disappearing in the woods.

CHAPTER X

GWEN CALLS UPON POLLY

Polly’s return was hailed with delight, and it seemed as if every child in the neighborhood turned its steps to ward Sherwood Hall to greet her, and to hear all about her visit.

Lena Lindsey, with her brother Rob, Leslie Grafton, and Harry, Vivian Osborne, and, indeed, all of her little friends and playmates hastened to see her, to hear from Rose, and to tell all of the small neighborhood happenings that had occurred while she had been away.