Bright and early the next Monday morning Mary Jane went over to Doris's house to ask if she could come and play. Fortunately the chicken pox was all over and Doris was well and was allowed to play again. Mary Jane had had so many things to do during the time that Doris had been sick and she was anxious to tell about them. And she was oh, so very glad to have her little friend to play with again.

"Come on over to my house," she urged Doris, "I can play all morning."

"Are you sure Doris won't be in your mother's way?" asked Doris' mother.

"Monday morning is a busy time, I know."

"It isn't at our house," said Mary Jane positively, "because this day isn't wash day to-day—it's just getting ready for my sister Alice's party this afternoon and mother said we wouldn't bother if we played in the nursery, so please do let her come."

"Very well," laughed Doris's mother, "if you're as sure as all that I guess I'll let her go, but I should think getting ready for a party would be almost as much work as wash day! What are you going to play?"

"Paper dolls," said Mary Jane. "I have two, five new sheets and two scissors that don't prick that my Aunt Effie sent to me and she said that Doris could play with them too."

"That's fine," said Doris's mother much relieved. "I should think you little girls would have a very happy time because you haven't seen each other for so long. Run along now, Doris, and be sure to come home when the big whistle blows for noon."

The two little girls skipped gayly across the yard, through the gap in the hedge between the houses and onto Mary Jane's porch.

"Let's play here," suggested Doris.

"We can't," said Mary Jane, "'cause mother says if we play out doors she don't know where we are so we must play in the nursery with all the windows open and have a good time and not bother. So let's do that.

"And anyway," she added as they climbed up the stairs, "out doors is bad for paper dolls so I'm not sorry."

They got out the five new sheets of paper dolls and the scissors and set to work cutting. Now everybody who has ever played cutout-paper dolls knows that the cutting out is the most fun. As long as there was a doll or a hat or a parasol uncut those two little girls had a beautiful time. They figured out which hats belonged to which dresses and they counted the children on the five pages so they could be divided equally. But as soon as the cutting was done, the fun was over and the girls didn't know what to do with themselves.

"I'll tell you what let's do," suggested Mary Jane suddenly, "some of these dolls have dress-up clothes like a show. Let's make a show in a box like Alice does."

What Mary Jane meant was this. Some of Alice's friends liked to plan rooms, and furnish them. And to do that they took a neat pasteboard box and stood it on its side; then they lined it with crepe paper for wall paper. Then they made furniture to match the color scheme (they were very particular about color schemes, Mary Jane remembered that) and they dressed dolls in crepe paper to match and put them in the furnished room. And, Mary Jane thought this part was the best of all, when they were tired of one room, they gave it to Mary Jane and made a new one for themselves.

It happened that only the week before, Alice and her best friend Frances had made a beautiful little room, in a box of course, all done in green and pale yellow. Later they had planned one in rose and had told Mary Jane she might have the green and yellow one. It was this box Mary Jane meant to use for the show.

"You just wait till you see," she said to Doris, "you wait till—" and she dived into her closet, climbed up on the play box inside the door and reached up to the shelf where she had put the box the girls had given her.

"What is it? Where'd you get it?" demanded Doris as the treasure was pulled out.

"It's mine!" said Mary Jane proudly, "and we'll give a paper doll show like
Alice does—you just see!"

Doris had no older brother or sister to give her ideas so she had to wait till Mary Jane explained her plan.

"First, we'll fix this up some way, they always do," began Mary Jane.

"But it's pretty now," objected Doris.

"Oh, yes, but we have to fix it," said Mary Jane scornfully, "they always do, they never use a box just as it is—never! Now what could we do, what could go on top of a house? A roof, but what could we make a roof of? Or, oh, I think we'll put on some clouds maybe, clouds ought to be easy, would you like clouds, Doris?"

"On the top?"

"Yes, on top of the house where clouds belong."

"All right," said the obliging Doris, "I don't care which you make. But where do we get clouds?"

"Let's ask 'Manda," said Mary Jane, "she's here to help make the party. She likes me, maybe she knows where we can get some clouds." The two little girls hurried down the back stairs to the kitchen, but Amanda wasn't there. They were just about to go sorrowfully back to the nursery when Mary Jane noticed something white on the table.

"Why, here are some clouds all ready for us!" she exclaimed. "I guess 'Manda must have known we were coming! You take all you can carry, Doris, and I'll take the rest."

Doris plunged her hand bravely into the mass of beaten white of egg that filled the great platter and Mary Jane tumbled all that was left into her apron and they gleefully hurried back upstairs.

"There, now," said Mary Jane, "we'll make clouds all over our house and then we'll have the show." But that show never was held.

For just as they left the kitchen, Amanda came back into it to finish the cake she was making for the party and found that her eggs, the beautiful whites that she had beaten with such pains, were gone!

"It sooly do seem queer, Mis' Merrill," she said to her mistress, "them eggs was right here and then they wasn't here and eggs can't walk, kin they—leastwise not when they's beat up?"

"No, eggs can't walk but little girls can," said Mrs. Merrill for she suddenly recalled hearing mysterious sounds and giggles on the back stairs a moment or two before. "I think I know where your eggs are but why they are gone, I can't imagine!" And she hurried up to the nursery. And there, sure enough, were the eggs!

"What in the world are you girls doing with those eggs?" she demanded.

"Those aren't eggs," said Mary Jane scornfully, "those are clouds and this is going to be a paper doll show."

"I don't know about a paper doll show, daughter," said Mrs. Merrill seriously, "but I do know that those are the eggs which were to have gone into the cake for Alice's party."

"Oh, mother, not really?" exclaimed Mary Jane, and the tears came into her big eyes. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to spoil the party, truly I didn't, mother! We just wanted some clouds—anyway I did," she added honestly, "and we went down to 'Manda and she wasn't there but the clouds were so we took them. That's all. Will it spoil the party?"

"I don't know what to think," said Mrs. Merrill, as she sat down between the two little girls to think and plan. "Alice wanted that especial kind of cake for her party but eggs cost so much these days—there were eight whites on that platter, Mary Jane; I don't believe I can afford eight more, really I don't."

"Oh, I can, I can, mother dear!" cried Mary Jane and quick as a flash she ran to her little white dresser. "I can afford it with this and I want to!" She pulled out her precious letter with a dollar bill tucked in its folds—the dollar bill that her great-grandmother had sent her and with which she was to buy something very special for herself—and handed it to her mother. "Please, mother, let her have it with this!"

"Do you realize that this is your very own dollar that you are giving me?" asked Mrs. Merrill, and Doris eyed Mary Jane's wealth with surprised eyes.

"Yes, mother, I know it is mine, mine that I was saving for a big doll, but I don't want to spoil Alice's party, truly I don't! Please let me go buy some more eggs for her cake!"

"I believe you really want to," said Mrs. Merrill, as she slipped her arm around the eager little girl, "and I believe it's the best thing to do. You didn't realize that you were taking something that you had no right to when you took those 'clouds' for the doll house, did you, Mary Jane?"

"'Deed I didn't, mother, and please may we get the eggs now?"

Mrs. Merrill looked at her watch. "There will be just time if you go right away, dear," she said; "come the back way and I'll give you a basket to carry them in so none will be broken. And get eight, that's all you took—I'll buy the yellows from you so you will still have a good deal left from your dollar."

The two little girls skipped down to the grocery in a hurry but they didn't hurry home—no, sir! They walked slowly and carefully so that not an egg was even cracked.

And by the time they got home and gave Amanda the eggs and saw them all opened and divided, the whites on a platter and the yellows in a bowl, the big whistles blew for noon and Doris had to go home.

Mary Jane went with her as far as the gate and then waited under the little mulberry tree till her father came home for his lunch.

"Well, this is fine," said Mr. Merrill as he tossed her up onto his shoulder. "I like to see my little girl waiting for me. And what have you learned this morning, pussy?"

"I learned that eggs aren't clouds and that they cost money," said Mary
Jane, "and I didn't spoil the party!"

"Pretty good for one morning, say I," laughed father, and he carried her on into the house.