"Why can't we get them to-day?" asked Polly who did not want to put off such a pleasure.
"Because Mr. Hobbs never has any before the Fourth of July. He always gets in his good things then, but never a day sooner or later. I know him of old," said Dick.
"By that time Mary will be here," said Molly thoughtfully, "and we can have our first tea-party in her honor."
"Yes, and she can help us make our Fourth," said Uncle Dick, laughing. "She has never known our great and glorious Fourth over there in England."
"Of course not," said Polly. "I forgot she was a wicked Britisher."
"But we must never let her think we have any grudge against her because we were the ones that won the Revolution," said Molly. "It wouldn't be polite to pick at her because she isn't an American. Do you suppose she will be very snippy, Polly? and will be disagreeable and run down America?"
"Oh, my, I hope not; I'd hate her to be that way," returned Polly alarmed at such a prospect. "It would be dreadful for us to be quarreling all the time and of course we couldn't keep still if she runs down our country. What shall we do if she does?"
This settled the matter and was a relief to both little girls, who considered that what Uncle Dick didn't know was not worth knowing, besides he had a smiling way of putting down persons who bragged too much, as the cousins well knew.
"I am just crazy to see her, and yet somehow I dread it," Polly told Molly.
Molly confessed to much the same feeling and declared that she would be glad when the first meeting was over and they were all acquainted. Then she undertook to show Polly more of her favorite haunts and it was suppertime before they had begun to see all they wished to.
The next week Mary arrived with Mrs. Shelton who remained but a short time before she resumed her journey. Mary was a slim, pale, plainly-dressed little girl who looked not at all as her cousins imagined. She did not seem shy but she had little to say at first, sitting by herself in a corner of the porch as soon as dinner was over and answering only such questions as were put to her.
"Did you have a pleasant trip?" asked Molly by way of beginning the acquaintance.
"No," returned Mary. "Fancy being seasick nearly all the way."