Sounds of beating and dusting came from the spare room. Tables and chairs were standing about: and a cot-bed, which seemed to be taking a walk all by itself, had stopped short at the head of the stairs, and barred the way.

‘Why, how queer!’ said Katy, trying to get past. ‘What can be going to happen? Oh, there’s Aunt Izzie! Aunt Izzie, who’s coming? What are you moving the things out of the Blue-room for?’

‘Oh, gracious! is that you?’ replied Aunt Izzie, who looked very hot and flurried. ‘Now, children, it’s no use for you to stand there asking questions; I haven’t got time to answer them. Let the bedstead alone, Katy, you’ll push it into the wall. There, I told you so!’ as Katy gave an impatient shove, ‘you’ve made a bad mark on the paper. What a troublesome child you are! Go right downstairs, both of you, and don’t come up this way again till after tea. I’ve just as much as I can possibly attend to till then.’

‘Just tell us what’s going to happen, and we will,’ cried the children.

‘Your Cousin Helen is coming to visit us,’ said Miss Izzie, curtly, and disappeared into the Blue-room.

This was news indeed. Katy and Clover ran downstairs in great excitement, and after consulting a little, retired to the loft to talk it over in peace and quiet. Cousin Helen coming! It seemed as strange as if Queen Victoria, gold crown and all, had invited herself to tea. Or as if some character out of a book, Robinson Crusoe, say, or Amy Herbert, had driven up with a trunk, and announced the intention of spending a week. For to the imaginations of the children, Cousin Helen was as interesting and unreal as anybody in the Fairy Tales – Cinderella, or Blue-beard, or dear Red Riding-Hood herself. Only there was a sort of mixture of Sunday-school book in their idea of her, for Cousin Helen was very, very good.

None of them had ever seen her. Philly said he was sure she hadn’t any legs, because she never went away from home, and lay on a sofa all the time. But the rest knew that this was because Cousin Helen was ill. Papa always went to visit her twice a year, and he liked to talk to the children about her, and tell how sweet and patient she was, and what a pretty room she lived in. Katy and Clover had ‘played Cousin Helen’ so long that now they were frightened as well as glad at the idea of seeing the real one.

‘Do you suppose she will want us to say hymns to her all the time?’ asked Clover.

‘Not all the time,’ replied Katy, ‘because you know she’ll get tired, and have to take naps in the afternoons. And then, of course, she reads the Bible a great deal. Oh dear, how quiet we shall have to be! I wonder how long she’s going to stay?’

‘What do you suppose she looks like?’ went on Clover.

‘Something like “Lucy”, in Mrs Sherwood, I suppose, with blue eyes, and curls, and a long, straight nose. And she’ll keep her hands clasped so all the time, and wear “frilled wrappers”, and lie on the sofa perfectly still, and never smile, but just look patient. We’ll have to take off our boots in the hall, Clover, and go upstairs in stocking feet, so as not to make a noise, all the time she stays.’

‘Won’t it be funny!’ giggled Clover, her sober little face growing bright at the idea of this variation on the hymns.

The time seemed very long till the next afternoon, when Cousin Helen was expected. Aunt Izzie, who was in a great excitement, gave the children many orders about their behaviour. They were to do this and that, and not to do the other. Dorry, at last, announced that he wished Cousin Helen would just stay at home. Clover and Elsie, who had been thinking pretty much the same thing in private, were glad to hear that she was on her way to a water-cure, and would stay only four days.

Five o’clock came. They all sat on the steps waiting for the carriage. At last it drove up. Papa was on the box. He motioned the children to stand back. Then he helped out a nice-looking woman, who, Aunt Izzie told them, was Cousin Helen’s nurse, and then, very carefully, lifted Cousin Helen in his arms and brought her in.

‘Oh, there are the chicks!’ were the first words the children heard, in such a gay, pleasant voice.