We knew that Uncle Alec was fond of children and was heart-glad to welcome `` Alan 's boys . '' We felt at home with him , and were not afraid to ask him questions on any subject that came uppermost in our minds . We became very good friends with him on that twenty-four mile drive . Much to our disappointment it was dark when we reached Carlisle -- too dark to see anything very distinctly , as we drove up the lane of the old King homestead on the hill . Behind us a young moon was hanging over southwestern meadows of spring-time peace , but all about us were the soft , moist shadows of a May night . We peered eagerly through the gloom . `` There 's the big willow , Bev , '' whispered Felix excitedly , as we turned in at the gate . There it was , in truth -- the tree Grandfather King had planted when he returned one evening from ploughing in the brook field and stuck the willow switch he had used all day in the soft soil by the gate . It had taken root and grown ; our father and our uncles and aunts had played in its shadow ; and now it was a massive thing , with a huge girth of trunk and great spreading boughs , each of them as large as a tree in itself . `` I 'm going to climb it to-morrow , '' I said joyfully . Off to the right was a dim , branching place which we knew was the orchard ; and on our left , among sibilant spruces and firs , was the old , whitewashed house -- from which presently a light gleamed through an open door , and Aunt Janet , a big , bustling , sonsy woman , with full-blown peony cheeks , came to welcome us . Soon after we were at supper in the kitchen , with its low , dark , raftered ceiling from which substantial hams and flitches of bacon were hanging . Everything was just as father had described it . We felt that we had come home , leaving exile behind us . Felicity , Cecily , and Dan were sitting opposite us , staring at us when they thought we would be too busy eating to see them . We tried to stare at them when THEY were eating ; and as a result we were always catching each other at it and feeling cheap and embarrassed . Dan was the oldest ; he was my age -- thirteen . He was a lean , freckled fellow with rather long , lank , brown hair and the shapely King nose . We recognized it at once . His mouth was his own , however , for it was like to no mouth on either the King or the Ward side ; and nobody would have been anxious to claim it , for it was an undeniably ugly one -- long and narrow and twisted .
But it could grin in friendly fashion , and both Felix and I felt that we were going XXXXX like Dan .
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