[59]

“Good for Cyrus!” said Kent, jumping up to meet his sister, who drove her big car through the gate and up the driveway as though she had been running an automobile all her life.

“Only think, five Browns together again!” exclaimed Paul, as they seated themselves on the porch of the bungalow after duly admiring the new car. Molly had Kizzie brew a fresh pot of tea and John was persuaded to eat some more thin slices of bread and butter.

“Yes, five of you together again,” said Mrs. Brown wistfully. “Ah, me! I wish I could get all seven of you at Chatsworth once more. Indeed, I wish I had all of you back in the nursery again.”

“But where would I come in then?” said Edwin Green whimsically.

“And little Mildred?” from Molly, hugging her infant.

“And Sue’s new car, not to mention Cyrus?” teased Kent.[60]

[60]

“You are right, children. I should be more of a philosopher.

“‘The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.’”

Molly stood over Kent with a cup of steaming tea and taking her cue from her mother’s quotation from the Rubaiyat and prompted by his knownothing attitude with his Aunt Clay, she got off the stanza:

“Yesterday This Day’s Madness did prepare;

To-morrow’s Silence, Triumph, or Despair:

Drink! for you know not whence you came nor why:

Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.”

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