Page:Anna Chapin--Half a dozen boys.djvu/207

Rh you. Mean old things! What did they come for?” And both the boys scowled darkly in  the direction of the parlor, as Bess rose to leave  them, saying laughingly,—

“Take good care of each other, and don’t get into mischief. Rob, you’d better stay with Fred until they go.” And taking a Jacqueminot rose from a vase on the table, she put it in  the buttonhole of her new gray gown, and was  gone, leaving the boys in solitary possession of  the room, except for the great black cat that  was slumbering peacefully on one end of the  sofa.

“I want you to see Miss Carter, Muir,” Mr. Washburn had said, as they were putting on their hats, preparatory to starting; “she is quite  an unusual young woman. She is not only attractive and rather pretty, but she knows a  thing or two; and then she has a great gift for  managing small boys, and making the best of  them. That little dark-eyed fellow that leads the choir is her cousin, and her influence over  him and two or three of the others helps out  my discipline wonderfully. I don’t know how I should get along without her.”