The first few days of her cousins’ visit were like a pleasant dream to Jessie. She had so much to say, and so many things to show to her visitors, that they could scarcely help sharing the joy which welled up within her like a crystal stream from a mountain spring. Seeing them so cheerful and happy, Jessie wondered more and more at the question her uncle had asked her about enjoying their visit.

“I don’t see what Uncle Morris meant,” said she to herself one afternoon, while her cousins were on the lawn laughing and playing with Guy, and she was washing her hands by way of preparation for tea. “He looked and sighed,” she went on to say, “as if he thought I should be disappointed in them. But I am not. They are the kindest, merriest cousins in the world. I declare I’ll ask Uncle Morris what he meant, the next time I see him alone.”

That next time came very soon, for as Jessie skipped down stairs, with laughter twinkling in her eyes, and a song tripping from her tongue, she met her uncle in the hall. Running right to him, she seized his arm, peered curiously into his face, and said—

“Uncle Morris?”

“Well, little puss, what now?” replied the old gentleman, as he kissed her rosy cheeks.

“I want you to tell me what you sighed and shook your head for, last week, when I told you what good times I was going to have with my cousins?” said Jessie, closely watching the expression of the old gentleman’s face.

There was a merry twinkle in Uncle Morris’s eyes, as he replied, “You have a good memory for a laughing little puss. Well, I’m glad you have not yet found out why I sighed. I hope you won’t make the discovery, though I fear you will before another week passes. There is a proverb which says, It’s only the shoe that knows whether the stocking has holes in it or not. Now, Jessie, if you can find out the meaning of this proverb, you will know why I sighed. If you don’t find it out in a week, I’ll explain it to you.”

“How funny!” exclaimed the little girl; and then, putting on a thoughtful air, she repeated the proverb slowly, in an undertone; after which, she added aloud, “I don’t see what shoes and stockings have to do with my cousins and me. What a funny man you are, Uncle Morris!”

Uncle Morris had, by this time, reached the door leading to the back piazza. He heard this exclamation, however, and turning round, with the door-knob in his hand, he peeped through the opening, shook his forefinger at her, and said—

“When Jessie knows her cousins as the shoe knows the stocking, she will be able to tell why I sighed. Ha! ha! ha! Uncle Morris is a funny man, is he?”

Just then a loud voice was heard ringing through the hall, and saying—

“Cousin Jessie! Cousin Jessie! come here quick! Your ugly old dog is killing my sister!”

“Not quite so bad as that, I guess,” said Jessie, when she reached the front door, where she saw Emily sitting on the greensward, rubbing the back of her head. Old Rover was standing on the piazza, uttering a low growl at Charlie, by way of warning him not to throw any more stones at his dogship.

“He’s an ugly monster, that he is,” said the boy, hurling another stone at Rover, as he moved toward his mistress, and began to rub his nose against her hands.

“Down, Rover!” said Jessie, patting the dog’s head, and thus quieting his temper, which was somewhat ruffled by the last stone, which Charlie had sent right against his ribs.

“I will stone him, if I want to,” growled Charlie, pouting his lips, puffing out his cheeks, and stamping his foot, as Guy laid his hand on his right arm.

“No, no, Charlie, you must not stone old Rover. It is not kind to hurt a poor, harmless dog, nor is it quite safe, either, for, you see, Rover has big teeth, and he may bite you if you hurt him,” said Guy, still holding the angry boy.

“I don’t care! He hurt my sister. I’ll kick you if you don’t let me stone him as much as I like. Let me go, you ugly fellow!” and with these words, Charlie kicked and struggled with such violence, that Guy could scarcely hold him.

Meanwhile, Jessie, having sent old Rover to his kennel, was trying to comfort Emily. The whole difficulty had grown out of her attempt to mount the dog’s back, in defiance of Guy’s advice. He told her that Rover did not like to do service as a pony, and that he would certainly throw her off if she tried to ride him. But, urged on by Charlie, she had seated herself on the dog, and had been thrown down just as Jessie had been, a few days before. She was not much hurt, a slight bruise on the back of her head being the only damage she had sustained. Jessie would have laughed over such a trifle. But Emily was not like Jessie. She had been pleasant thus far, since her coming to Glen Morris. But now, her good-nature being played out, she began to show the selfish and ugly side of her character.

“Never mind that little hurt, dear Emily,” said Jessie, as she passed her hand lightly over the bruise. “If you will go into the house with me, I’ll get mother to rub a little arnica upon it, and that will make it well very soon.”

“I won’t go in; and if your father don’t have that ugly dog killed, I’ll go home to-morrow, that I will!”

“What! have Rover killed? Oh, no! Pa won’t do that, I’m sure,” said Jessie, a little startled at the idea of dear old Rover’s death.

“I’ll kill him!” screamed Charlie, who was still a sulky prisoner in Guy’s hands.

“You are a little fellow to play the part of a butcher!” said Mr. Morris, who had now come to the front of the house, and had been quietly surveying the scene, for a few moments past, from behind a large evergreen, unperceived by all but Guy.

“I’m glad you are come, Uncle,” said Guy, “for I did not know what to do with this little lump of spunk. I guess that Jessie is glad, too, for she seems puzzled to know what to do with Emily, who is as sulky as Charlie here is spunky.”

The presence of Uncle Morris quieted Charlie, and made Emily rise from the grass. But nothing that he could say, after hearing the whole story, could restore them to good humor. Charlie bit his thumb, and scowled; while Emily, pushing Jessie from her side, kept rolling her pocket-handkerchief into a ball, pouted, and refused to say a word, either to her uncle or cousin.

In this wretched mood they went in to tea, sitting at the table like two dark shadows falling across a room full of sunshine. Everybody was kind to them. Jessie did her utmost to restore them to good humor. Uncle Morris said funny things, hoping to make them smile. But it was no use. Smile they would not; and when tea was over, they both slunk away to a distant part of the room, and kept up their sulks until bedtime. Even then, when Jessie tried to kiss Emily, she was rudely pushed aside.

“I don’t want to kiss anybody in this house,” muttered the ugly child; and poor Jessie, shrinking from her, went to her uncle, laid her head upon his shoulder, and wept.

“The shoe has begun to find holes in the stocking,” said Uncle Morris, passing his hand over Jessie’s head, with great tenderness; “but never mind, my little puss—cheer up. Your cousins will leave their bad tempers in the land of dreams, I hope, and their good-nature will return with the sun to-morrow morning. Dry your eyes, my sweet Jessie, and be thankful to the Father above, that your cousins cannot rob you of your own sunny temper.”

Jessie did dry her eyes, and looking into her uncle’s face, said, with a nod of her pretty head, “Now I know why you sighed; and I know, too, what your proverb meant.”

“What did I sigh for, puss?”

“Because you knew my cousins had ugly tempers.”

“That’s so! But the proverb?”

“Meant that when I became better acquainted with my cousins, I should find out their faults.”

“Well done, my little puzzle-cracker. You are good at guessing. But, Jessie, what are you going to do? How will you treat your cousins to-morrow?”

Jessie held down her head awhile, as if she was thinking her way through a difficult idea. At last she looked up, with eyes full of tenderness, and with a voice made musical by deep feeling, said:—

“I will be just as kind to them as I possibly can!”

“That’s right, my Jessie,” said her uncle, folding her to his bosom and kissing her forehead, “that’s right. There is nothing like kindness for curing ugly children. It’s the best medicine in the world to give them. Give it to them, Jessie, in big doses. Maybe they will like it so well that they will get cured of their ugliness; for, as the proverb says,—Flies are caught with syrup; not with vinegar.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice, Uncle Morris, if we could make my cousins good-natured while they are here? Wouldn’t Uncle Albert and Aunt Hannah be glad if we could send them home kind, and gentle, and good? Oh, I wish I could get them to be good, as our Guy did Richard Duncan. Wouldn’t it be nice?”

“Try to do it, my dear. We will all help you, and so will the Great Father above,” said Mrs. Carlton, beckoning Jessie to her side and giving her a kiss so full of a mother’s holy love that it sent a thrill of bliss through the happy heart of her child. Thus like a sunbeam did Jessie brighten the life of her parents and her uncle. As she left the room to go to bed, Uncle Morris followed her with his eyes, and when her light form had glided up-stairs, he turned to his sister and said:—

“That child of yours is a treasure, my sister. I can’t tell you how much her loving little heart gladdens mine. Why, I have grown at least fifteen years younger in my feelings since she came to Glen Morris. Like a glorious little sun, she shines into the depths of my heart, melting all the ice of age and chasing away the gloom of my past sorrows.”

“Yes, Jessie is a lovely child,” replied Mrs. Carlton. A big tear which dropped upon her needle-work at that moment showed that the words of her brother had stirred the deep fountains of love which were within her heart.

But the two ugly cousins—what were they? Were they not like two black clouds freighted with storms, and come to darken the light and disturb the pleasure of that happy household? No wonder their sleep was troubled that night. No wonder Emily awoke in a fright, caused by the terrible nightmare. But Jessie’s sleep was sweet and sound, and when her mother stood over her bed, as she always did before retiring for the night, Jessie smiled so sweetly in her slumber that her mother said:—

“Bless her! the smile of a seraph is on her lips.”

As Uncle Morris foretold, Emily and Charlie left their sulks in dreamland. It would have been well if they had left the selfishness, from which their conduct of the evening before sprung, in the same place. But that still clung to them like the leprosy, and though they wore bright faces, they still carried fireworks in their bosom, ready to explode whenever a spark might happen to touch them.

Jessie greeted her cousins with gentle words and loving kisses, just as if she had never seen them in a fit of bad temper. Indeed, she made no allusion whatever to the affair of the day before. This silence puzzled the cousins, who expected, at least, a lecture from Uncle Morris and a little coldness from Jessie. I think it also made them feel ashamed, for they could not help saying to themselves,—

“It was rather mean in us to make such a fuss as we did yesterday.”

Just after breakfast, while Jessie was showing Emily her six dolls, neither of which had a perfect dress, for Jessie never finished any thing, and Charlie was playing with Guy’s india-rubber ball in the hall, Hugh plunged in at the front door, and, rushing into the sitting-room, said:—

“Jessie, what will you give me if I tell you a secret?”

“A kiss,” replied Jessie, gathering her lips into the form of a rose-bud.

“Pooh! what’s a kiss. I wouldn’t give you a red cent for a thousand kisses. Won’t you offer me something better for my secret?” said Hugh, turning up his nose as if in scorn of the proffered kiss.

“I don’t believe you have any secret that we care about knowing,” said Jessie. Then holding up her best wax doll, she said to Emily, “Isn’t this a beauty?”

“Yes, but why don’t you coax Hugh to tell us his wonderful secret?” said Emily, who felt quite curious to know what Hugh had to tell.

“Oh, he is only teasing us. You don’t know what a tease he is,” replied Jessie, with an air of indifference.

“No, honor bright, I’m not teasing. I have a secret that would make you girls pitch your dolls into next week, if you knew it,” retorted Hugh.

“Well, what is it? Do tell us,” said Jessie, beginning to believe that he had something to tell worth knowing.

“What will you give me?” asked Hugh, still bent on tantalizing the girls.

“I’ve got nothing to give that you want,” said Jessie, and then in a coaxing tone she added, “come, Hugh, do tell us, there’s a good, dear Hugh.”

“No, you don’t come it over me with soft soap like that,” replied the boy; “I’m not a fly to be caught with maple molasses.”

“If you was my brother I’d make you tell me,” said Emily, her eyes sparkling with rising passion as she spoke.

“You are a spunky little lady, I declare,” said Hugh, laughing; “but here, Jessie, suppose you try to guess my secret. It is something you would give ever so much to know.”

“Really, Hugh, have you a secret, truly?”

“Yes, truly. Honor bright, I tell you. It is a glorious secret. It will make you ever so happy to know it.”

“What is it about? Is somebody coming here? Do tell me, Hugh.”

“Catch a weasel asleep and you’ll catch me answering questions. But I see you won’t buy, and you can’t guess my secret, so I’ll be off,” and in spite of all the entreaties of Jessie and the biting speeches which Emily made, master Hugh left the room, carrying his secret with him.

Jessie, sighed, and turning to her dolls, said, “Hugh is a great tease, isn’t he Emily?”

“He’s a great ugly monster!” retorted Emily, who was in the habit of using strong words, without much regard to their meaning. “If he was my brother he shouldn’t tease me so.”

“Oh, Hugh only does it for fun. He is a dear good brother, after all, only,” and here Jessie lowered her voice almost to a whisper, “only I wish he was as good as Guy.”

“For fun, eh? I’d fun him: I’d pull his hair, and hide away his books, and steal his playthings, and call that fun, if he was my brother,” cried Emily.

“Oh, fy! cousin Emily. That would be wicked fun, and would make both you and your brother unhappy,” said Guy, who had just entered the room.

The girls looked on the speaker, who, before Emily had time to reply, went on to say,—

“Girls, Carrie Sherwood invites you to go nutting with her this afternoon. Richard Duncan, Norman Butler, Adolphus Harding, Walter, Hugh, Charlie, you two young ladies, Carrie, and a young lady or two of her acquaintance, are to make up the party. Carriages will call for you at one o’clock. You must get ma to give you an early dinner, and be ready in time.”

“That is what Hugh meant by his secret. Oh, I’m so glad,” said Jessie, clapping her hands. “Won’t it be nice, Emily?”

Emily thought it would. The girls thanked Guy for his good news, and, springing from the sofa, started to inform Charlie and Mrs. Carlton of the proposed party. Charlie was delighted. Mrs. Carlton knew all about it, because the whole matter had been quietly arranged a day or two before by her and Mrs. Sherwood. Carried away by the idea of this delightful excursion, Jessie left her six dolls, with their incompleted dresses, on the sofa, on the chairs, and on the floor. Impulse, the merry little wizard, had seized her, and she thought of nothing but the nutting-party the remainder of the morning.