The locust-trees tossed up the white spray of their fragrant blossoms with every wave of their green boughs.
"They'll soon be heah! They'll soon be heah!" chanted the Little Colonel every day.
The morning they came she had been down the avenue a dozen times to look for them before the carriage had even started to meet them.

"Walkah," she called, "cut me a big locus' bough.

I want to wave it fo' a flag!" Just as he dropped a branch down at her feet, she caught the sound of wheels.

"Hurry, gran'fathah," she called; "they's comin'." But the old Colonel had already started on toward the gate to meet them.

The carriage stopped, and in a moment more Papa Jack was tossing Lloyd up in his arms, while the old Colonel was helping Elizabeth to alight.
"Isn't this a happy mawnin' ?" exclaimed the Little Colonel, as she leaned from her seat on her father's shoulder to kiss his sunburned cheek.
"A very happy morning," echoed her grandfather, as he walked on toward the house with Elizabeth's hand clasped close in his own.
Long after they had passed up the steps the old locusts kept echoing the Little Colonel's words.