It didn’t take Rose and Ruth a great while to pick up, once they were allowed out of bed. All the same, Marmie thought it best for them not to be too energetic in their amusements for a bit.  
So, though the January weather was bright and not very cold, the two girls could not go riding yet, and at the earliest hint of sundown Marmie would come to the door and call them in.
 
“Come along, girlies. I’ve got a big piece of chocolate cake and a glass of milk for each of you, right before the fire. You can play indoors as much as you like, but the hens and you must be out of the cold when the sun slips behind the hill....”
 
And she waited for them, smiling, as they came back from feeding the chickens, a pail hanging between the two, their knitted red caps tightly down round their faces, that were looking round and again.
 
“Oh, goody! chocolate cake,” shouted both, skipping and swinging the pail. “You sweet Marmie! Do you know, the old red hen laid 186an egg to-day, and so did the pullet that crows, and that Dad said never would be anything but a . I guess he’ll be surprised!”
 
“I guess he will, and we’ll give him that egg for his breakfast to-morrow. But hurry in—I’m freezing.”
 
My gracious, but that cake and milk were good! The girls pretended they were two grown-up ladies, and that Ruth was visiting Rose, and they in the most perfect manner while they ate and drank, being careful not to lose so much as a .
 
They a lot, too, but if you asked why I’m sure I don’t know, and I don’t believe they did. After all, that is the pleasantest kind of , that just comes, as Rose once said, rolling up from inside you without your having anything to do with it.
 
So when Ruth said that she had been obliged to leave her six children at home because they all had chickenpox, both girls went off into a perfect of laughter. It was only when they stopped for breath that they heard the fairy’s voice, and it was all mixed up with laughter too, saying:
 
“What in the world are you two young ones laughing at? And if you’re having such a good time of course you won’t want to go visiting with me.”
 
At that they laughed again, all three of them, especially when Rose tried to explain why they 187were laughing. So she gave it up finally, which was easy since after all she didn’t know.
 
“Oh, Fairy Honeysqueak, I do wish we hadn’t eaten up all the cake, so that we could have had some for you. Do you like cake?”
 
“No, I usually take a little and dew when I’m hungry,” replied the fairy. “Cake is too solid for my constitution. So don’t worry. And now where shall we go?”
 
After some excited conversation on that topic, it was that they would visit Di Vernon, whom the girls had long known in “Rob Roy.”
 
“You know she hasn’t any girls to play with either,” Rose reminded Ruth. “Only that great pack of stupid boy cousins. I’m sure she’ll be glad to see us, and I just love her.”
 
Whiff!!
 
And there they were, side by side, beside a noisy, rushing stream that leaped down small and round tiny in the liveliest manner imaginable, now shining in the sun, now dark under shadowy copses or bending trees. A most stream.
 
about in one of the larger pools was a dark, pretty girl dressed in a short kilted skirt, with a gay plaid wrapped about her shoulders. Her black hair hung down her back in curls, tumbling from under a fetching cap with a long feather in it. She was kicking the water about with her feet and laughing. On the shore, beside her shoes and stockings, lay a rod and creel. “I 188came here to meet you,” she called, “and got weary waiting, after as fine a string of as any one would wish to see. Come, come down the bank and play in this fresh water a wee bit before we start back to Osbaldistone Hall, where we are to have a try with the , so my uncle said.”
 
Rose and Ruth found themselves looking just as as the lassie before them, in plaid and kilted frocks. Down the little bank they , and off came shoes and stockings in a jiffy. Di opened her creel for them to see the shining catch, and begged them to try a cast in the pools above. But the two preferred to , especially as they hadn’t a notion how to fish with the artificial flies Di had been using.
 
“We fish with worms at home,” said Rose, “though Dad says he’s going to teach us fly fishing next summer. You must be a dandy at it.”
 
“I cannot allow my cousins to beat me at any such sport,” answered Di, as the three clambered up on a rock lying in mid-stream and down to watch the water. “They box and and tramp, and at me for not being expert in such matters, as though I had been born a huge ungainly boy. So when it comes to fishing or riding or falconry, I’ll not let them pass me.”
 
There was just a fascinating touch of Scotch brogue to Di’s speech. Ruth thought she was the loveliest creature she had ever seen, with the clear colour shining in her cheeks, her clustering curls, her flaming sun-brown eyes and , slender body.
 
“Is it far to your home from here?” she asked.
 
“Just a bit climb and a run down into the glen. Let’s be off, for bonnie as this burn is it’s time we were thinking of dinner.”
 
What a tramp that was, under the spreading trees near the , up to a heathy hill where the air was sweet as honey and the butterflies rocked over the flowers that crowded every step of the way! Di out the Cheviot hills, rising high, huge rounded , and frowning but wonderfully .
 
From the hilltop the girls looked down on Osbaldistone Hall, a fine old building that seemed to be of huge size, peeping out here and there from behind the splendid of oaks that crowded close upon it. A narrow led down the slope into the glen, and Di led the way along this at a dancing pace.
 
Diana took her two friends toward the Hall by way of an ancient garden guarded by high hedges of , between which ran narrow paths, giving every now and then on open spaces where once there had been carefully tended flowerbeds. Now these were overrun with weeds, but the that yet struggled there managed to bring to bloom many a lovely flower. Larkspur and Canterbury-bells, marigold and late roses made the garden sweet and bright, and both 190the young Americans kept exclaiming with joy over the pretty sight.
 
“Do you love flowers?” Di wanted to know. “Are they not , and the more so, I think, for this neglect? We will return here later if there be time, but now we must make our way to the dining-hall or uncle will begin to .”
 
Passing through an arched stone passage, they came out into a square courtyard surrounded on all sides by the massive old Hall. and windows opened to this court, and servants were across it. Diana crossed it and led on through a of hallways until, passing through a great double door, they came out into a long room, also vaulted, paved with stone, with a fireplace at one end, in which, for all it was warm summer outside, a fire crackled and flamed. Heavy oak tables were set for the meal, and just as the girls entered at one side, a crowd of men and boys tumbled in at the other, laughing and shouting and calling commands to a dozen dogs who poured in with them. When the boys saw Rose and Ruth, however, they immediately fell silent, staring half-sullenly, half-shyly in their direction, and forward awkwardly to their seats.
 
“These are my cousins, and you can see their manners are hardly polished,” said Di, somewhat scornfully. “But here comes my uncle; we will go and greet him if the dogs will let us be heard.”
 
Sir Hildebrand came in at that moment, a tall, 191broad-shouldered, handsome man in a green cloth suit that would have been magnificent if it had not been shabby. He was shouting at two of his hounds, and flourishing a riding whip. It seemed to Rose and Ruth that never in this world had they heard so a racket as echoed and roared under the vaulted stone roof. Di moved along unconcerned through it all, and they after her. As they reached the baronet he looked down at them with a quick, attractive smile:
 
“Well, Di, my girl, any one been bothering you—none shall cross my Di,” he cried in a big voice.
 
“Nay, Uncle, every one treats me with the greatest respect. But here be two friends of mine I would have you welcome to Osbaldistone Hall.”
 
No sooner said than done, and the baronet made the two sisters welcome in a way, telling them to eat their fill at his board and to consider his roof their own for as long as they chose.
 
“It shall ne’er be said that Di, the only female in Osbaldistone Hall, couldna’ ha’ her will here. All friends of hers are friends o’ mine and my sons’.”
 
The dinner, and confused, with servants bringing in and taking out dishes and filling glasses, all the while exchanging remarks with the of young men as well as with the laird himself, went on to a . The dogs , knives and forks . As the brothers lost their early shyness of Rose and Ruth they 192addressed remarks across them to each other, all having to do with riding or hunting in some form. Di regarded these youths with a of amusement and scorn, while they were evidently afraid of her quick tongue. The youngest boy, who seemed not more than a year or so older than she, she left alone, however. He was an odd, unattractive, figure of a boy, but there was an air of ease and self-possession about him that was very different from the rough, ungainly bearing of his older brothers.
 
Dinner was hurried over, so that the party might get away for the sport with the falcons.
 
Sir Hildebrand wanted to know whether the two girls were fond of , and good at it. But they told him they didn’t even know what he meant.
 
“Know of hawking!” exclaimed the baronet, evidently vastly astonished. “Well, well! Ye should see Di at it—eh, but she’s a wonder.”
 
In the courtyard a number of horses waited, saddled and , and a couple of fine pointers ran round, nosi............