During the half hour that Lady Betty favored them with her presence, no mention was made of Orilla. It was all a jumbling talk of what to get Rosa in Europe, and what Rosa should do while they were away.

“You see, Nancy dear,” said Mrs. Betty. “I left my little pet Pompsie—”

“Her dog,” interrupted Rosa.

“Rosa-linda!” exclaimed her father, rebukingly.

“Well, how would Nancy know—”

“I left my little dog with my sister, because Rosa might forget and lock him out on the roof some night. He adores to play on the roof—”

Then Margot appeared with a very small silver tray. It held a card which she handed to Lady Betty. “Oh, dear!” she sighed. “Fred, there’s the Prestons. Suppose you go down, like a love, while I slip into something. Rosa and Nancy be good girls. Nancy, your name is a hymn to me, it was also my grandmother’s. She was a cameo lady, beautiful beyond words.”

“No relation to our Nancy, then,” again spoke the impish Rosa.

Both girls were brazenly glad when their elders were gone, and in spite of Margot’s unwelcome ministrations, Rosa hopped out of bed, pushed Margot outside, shut the door, turned the key and undertook to execute an original dance, sort of “skippity-hop-to-the-barber-shop” fashion.

“Now you see, you see,” she paused to tell Nancy, “just what I’m up—against!”

“Rosalind Fernell!” exclaimed Nancy. “Do you know you are just too silly for anything?”

“Maybe I am.” The girl with the flying scarf came to a very abrupt stop and seemed to confront Nancy. “But I just want to tell you I can’t love Betty. She’s too dollified. Makes me feel like a—like a clown.” The voice, usually so flippant, had suddenly become almost tragic. “And that’s why, Nancy Brandon,” continued the indignant Rosa, “I’m going to become less—clownish!”

“Rosa!”

Tears, tears unmistakable had gathered in the soft blue eyes, and Nancy was panic stricken at their appearance. She couldn’t bear to cry herself, and she hated even worse than that to see any one else cry. And now, here was Rosa on the verge!

“I’ve just got to have it out!” moaned Rosa, dropping down again into her pillows. “Every time I see her I feel just the same. Oh, why couldn’t daddy be satisfied with me? We were such—such—chums—”

Nancy felt too much like agreeing with this to offer any sensible advice, but she felt called upon to try.

“I’m sure she loves you, Rosa. You just think she’s selfish—”

“Don’t—go—preaching. I just hate it, Nancy. And I’ve got an awful—temper.”

“So have I,” calmly replied Nancy. This brought Rosa’s tear-stained face up from the pillows.

“Have you—honestly? That’s because we’re real cousins. Of course, Betty isn’t any real relation to me.” Rosa seemed very glad of that.

“Guess we are something alike,” persisted Nancy, glad to change the subject. “We’ve both got—big—mouths—”

This was too much for Rosa. She simply roared, shouted, laughing, as so often a tiny child will, in the very face of its own tears.

“Big mouths!” she repeated. “Haven’t we, though? Big, long, square mouths like, like prize fighters.”

“No,” objected Nancy, “like Abraham Lincoln’s—”

This precipitated another gale of laughter, and only the insistent knocking, known to be Margot’s, for her voice accompanied the demand, brought the two girls back from their gleeful frolic.

“You are coming down to dinner,” ordered Margot, trying to make sure that her command would be obeyed.

“I certainly am not,” fired back Rosa.

“But why? You can walk. I even heard you dance—”

“You ought to see me dance, Margot,” answered the irrepressible Rosa. “Hearing me, isn’t the half of it. Seeing me is well worth while. But, Margot,” down dropped Rosa’s tone to one of entreaty, “you be a lamb, and fix up a gor-gee-ous tray for me and Nancy. Just this once, Margot. You know how I feel—”

“Rosalind, I’m honestly afraid that Mrs. Fernell will blame me for your conduct.” Margot drew her lips into so straight a line they didn’t look like lips at all.

“Do come down, Rosa,” pleaded Nancy, feeling very uncomfortable because of this willful girl’s obstinacy. It was bad enough to be away from home, but to have to keep up this battle seemed unreasonable to Nancy.

“Not to-night. Please don’t any one ask me,” and again tears threatened Rosa’s eyes. “If you don’t want to bother with my tray, Margot, just ask Baldy when he has time. There’s—no—hurry—”

This appeal brought about the result plainly desired by Rosa, for not only did Margot agree to the request, but she went much further. She wrote out the dinner menu, and from this list of fine food Rosa made her selection, first politely consulting Nancy’s taste.

“We live so differently,” explained Nancy, who was now losing much of the natural timidity following her introduction into this home. “You see, we don’t even keep a maid—”

“Oh, how jolly!” declared Rosa. “They’re a set of spies.”

“You don’t mean that, Rosa,” defended Nancy. “Why should a girl, who happens to be a maid, in any way be inferior—”

“Because she’s a maid,” insisted Rosa.

“But if you had to work, for instance, what would you be?”

“I’d run a beauty parlor,” declared Rosa, thus betraying anxiety concerning her own personal appearance. “What would you do?” she countered. “Well,” Nancy hesitated, “you know I’ve always declared I hated housework. In fact, I suppose I don’t really love it now, but last summer we had a cooking class at our little cottage, and really, Rosa, you have no idea how much fun there is in learning things with a lot of jolly girls.”

“I’d rather boys,” said contrary Rosa, “I’d like to learn to chop down trees and load guns and fish—”

“Yes, of course,” agreed Nancy, “but, you see, I knew all that. Ted and I are regular campers-out, and we’ve done almost everything woodsy. Mother loves it too, so we’ve spent more time on hikes and in camps than we ever have under civilized roofs.”

“You lucky dogs!” broke out Rosa, “I can’t imagine having a mother who could actually stay out of doors all night.”

“Oh, yes. Mother’s a real sport,” declared Nancy proudly. “But I doubt if you would like hiking and camping, Rosa. It’s terribly hard on—on beauty,” she faltered.

“Good for it! The best thing in the world. It’s this soft living that is making such a fluffy, fat caterpillar out of me.”

“But caterpillars turn to butterflies—”

“Don’t I know it? That’s why, Nancy,” hinted Rosa very mysteriously. “That’s exactly—why!”

“Why what?” demanded Nancy, bluntly.

“Hush! Sh-hh! Whish-th!” hissed Rosa, her sibilant sounds imitating the desired silence. “Don’t you know, pretty Coz, that’s the Great Secret?”

“What Great Secret?” Nancy flung up her head defiantly.

“Mine,” replied Rosa crisply. “Here’s the trays.”

For some moments Nancy showed her feelings, in fact, she almost pouted, for, she decided, if Rosa was going to keep up this attitude of mystery, and keep hinting at things, what fun was she, Nancy, going to have out of this long and almost lonely summer?

Possibly sensing her resentment, Rosa hurried to explain.

“When the folks are gone and we have everything to ourselves,” she began, “of course, things will be different.”

Nancy brightened at this. Her cousin was a very different girl from all Nancy’s other friends, it was only fair to give her a chance—a different sort of chance to what any other of Nancy’s chums might have expected.

The dinner served on Rosa’s pretty heart-shaped table proved a treat indeed.

“Lots more fun than eating in the dining room with Baldy at one’s elbow,” declared Nancy. “But it may seem strange to Betty—”

“Betty! She hasn’t gone down either,” replied Rosa. “Catch her sitting up straight for half an hour with only dear dad to applaud.”

“Oh,” echoed Nancy. “I’m glad she won’t miss us, because mother warned me most particularly to be punctual at meals.”

“Don’t worry, love. They’ll be gone early in the morning, then we can eat our meals on the rocks—if you’re not afraid of lizards, snakes, chipmunks and otters.” “I’m not,” said Nancy, dryly.

“You promised to tell me about last summer,” Rosa reminded her. “How you got won over to the cooking class scheme.”

“Oh, yes,” and Nancy started in on her orange sherbert just as she started in on the story. “Well, you see, we have always kept rather busy. We live that way. It wouldn’t be fair to let mother work in the library while Ted and I just—ran loose—”

“Why wouldn’t it?” asked Rosa innocently. “You two kids couldn’t work in a library.”

“No, but we could learn how to do something,” fended Nancy. “Mother didn’t learn just how to do that either, she simply did it because she knew she should.”

“Oh, yes, certainly,” spoke up Rosa rather apologetically. “Don’t think that I don’t appreciate your mother, Nance. Dad thinks she’s the best little woman there is, but I just didn’t understand.”

“There are a lot of things that neither of us understand,” answered Nancy, suddenly digressing. “I suppose it is because you and I have such different lives. There I live in a Massachusetts town and have only spent my summers at little places just outside, while you—”

“I don’t live anywhere,” moaned Rosa. “I just go from one place to the other like a suitcase or a hat box. School in Connecticut, winters in New York or maybe Boston, vacations in the craziest places in the world, until this summer. I just insisted upon staying here in my own dear mother’s place. She loved Fernlode.”

Gulping on the confection which she should not have eaten, Rosa showed genuine love for the mother who had gone. Respecting her feelings, it was some time before Nancy broke the silence, but when she did so it was of that jolly summer—last summer—at Long Leigh that she talked. She told Rosa all about the Whatnot Shop, about dear little Miss Manners, who had since become one of Nancy’s family by making her simple, humble home with them, and gladly assuming such cares as Nancy’s mother allowed her to take over. The fun every one had in the cistern mystery just sent Rosa off into gales of laughter as Nancy told of it, and while this was the story of Nancy Brandon: Enthusiast, as told in volume one of this series, it was easy to understand how the two cousins enjoyed its telling.

Presently there was a tap at the door, then Margot entered.

“The Durand’s are here—but you mustn’t think of going out, Rosa—”

“I’m going!” threatened the girl with the bandaged ankle, again up “in arms.”