During the following weeks, Mary was a very, very busy little girl. She had a wash day on the back porch when the suds flew in every direction, and Snowball fled upstairs to escape a bath not meant for her. The ironing was not so easy; but with help from the laundress on tucks and lace-trimmed ruffles, it was at last finished. The dolls themselves had their smiling faces well scrubbed with the nail brush, and their curls combed and brushed, after which they were dressed in their Sunday best and carefully laid in the big oak box which had been made for this purpose.

Next, Mary put her games in order and piled the boxes on the lowest shelf of her own little bookcase in her playroom; and then she sorted her books, putting all those which had only pictures and no reading matter in them on the shelf above the games; the A, B, C books and nursery rhymes on the one above that; and the story books, which she thought the twins would not use for some time, on the top shelf.

She did not finish her task until the Saturday before school opened, for there were many other things to be done every day. She could not neglect her pets nor her own little flower garden which she herself had dug and raked and hoed and planted with seeds, bulbs, and slips which Dan had given her. Every day, she chose the fairest blossoms to place before her mother's beautiful statue of our Blessed Lady.

But by far the greater part of her time was spent with her mother and little sisters. Each morning found her laying out the fresh clothing needed for the twins after their bath. Then she made ready their little beds, and Aunt Mandy always let her hold first one baby and then the other for a few minutes before tucking them in for their nap. It seemed to Mary a very strange hour to go to sleep. She thought every one ought to be quite wide awake by that time of the morning; but she had learned on the first day of her little sisters' lives that there is a great difference between babies and big girls of seven, just as there is between seven-year-olds and grown-ups.

The first of September came all too quickly. The thought of leaving the darling babies for five hours which she must spend at school every day made her wish that her mother would teach her at home as she had done the winter before. Not that Mary disliked school. The few months in the spring, which she had spent at a convent day school, had been such happy ones that she had been really sorry when school closed, and, until the babies came, had longed for September so that she might again sit at her little desk with Sister Florian smiling down at her and ever so many classmates with whom to romp at recess.

But now things were very different; and as she lay in her little brass bed the night before school opened, she wondered how her mother and Aunt Mandy could very well spare her during those long hours at the academy. Only that day, her mother had made her very happy by saying that she did not know what they would do without her. Since that was the case, Mary felt quite sure that it would be much better to have lessons with her mother.

She had done so well the winter before that, when she began to attend school, she was put in a class which had finished the First Reader before Easter and was just beginning the Second. During the summer, she had read all the lessons in that book, going to her mother for help with words that she could not quite make out. She had a habit of reading aloud even when alone, so that Mrs. Selwyn, passing from room to room, was often able to correct words which the child did not pronounce properly. The little girl laughed softly at the memory of one of her mistakes. She was reading a story of a little queen of England, and was calling one man in it the "Duck of Cucumbers." Her mother entered the room just in time to hear the dreadful mistake; and Mary soon saw that her duck was a duke—the Duke of Cumberland. From that time, she was more careful, for she knew that she would not like her father to be called a duck if he were a duke.

Yes, she was quite sure that she could do just as well, or even better, with her lessons at home if—and this was the important point—her mother had time to teach her. This thought had kept her from talking the matter over with her mother as she was in the habit of doing. She knew that the care of two babies takes a great deal of time and that her mother needed rest, too, when they were asleep. But what of her father and uncle? They could help her in the evenings. The Doctor often asked her to read to him after dinner, and why could she not read the lessons in the Third Reader?—for Mary had quite made up her mind that the Second Reader was much too easy for a school book. Sometimes, too, he teased her about the "tootums table." Yes, her uncle would surely help her with reading and number work, and her father with Catechism and spelling. She would slip down stairs to ask them before she went to sleep, and then surprise her mother with the plan in the morning.

Waiting only long enough to put on her pretty blue kimono and slippers, she crept from her room and down the stairs to the library, where the two men sat smoking.

"Why, pet, what is the matter? are you ill?" her father asked anxiously as he took her on his knee.

"Oh, no, Father! It would never do for me to get sick now when Mother and Aunt Mandy are so busy with the babies. Something popped into my head a little while ago, and I couldn't go to sleep until I had asked you about it."

"It would not keep until morning, I suppose," laughed the Doctor.

"Of course it would keep, Uncle; but you know there is never very much time to talk things over in the morning."

"Very true; and beginning with to-morrow, you will be almost too busy to speak to anyone in the morning."

"Oh, I shall find time to say a few things at breakfast; but Mother will be there, too, and this is something that she must not hear a word about until it is all settled."

"Out with it then! You should be sound asleep by this time."

"Yes, pet, Uncle is right; so let us hear your plan quickly."

"I have been thinking for ever so long that Mother and Aunt Mandy need me so much to help with the twins that I ought to stay home to do it. Mother says she doesn't see how they are going to get along without me. I can save them a great many steps, you know, and do ever so many little things while they are doing the big ones; and if I go to school, I shall be away at the very busiest time."

It was well that Mary did not see the twinkle in the eyes of both gentlemen.

"But I thought you so much enjoyed going to school that you were sorry when vacation began."

"Yes, Father, I liked it ever so much in the spring, and I s'pose it would be the same now; but when Mother needs me, I think I ought to stay at home to help her; don't you?"

Mr. Selwyn looked very thoughtful indeed.

"Of course, dear, Mother must have all the help she needs; but it seems to me that it would be too bad to keep you home from school. Your education is a very important thing, you know. Would it not be better to engage another maid to help about the house and let Liza assist Mother and Aunt Mandy?"

"But I don't mean that I would stop studying my lessons every day. Sister Florian said that Mother must be a fine teacher when I could skip Kindergarten and Primer and First Reader; but she has no time to help me now. The thing that popped into my head is that I would ask you and Uncle Frank to teach me in the evenings if you wouldn't mind doing it."

"Rather young to attend night school, eh, Rob? I, for one, should enjoy teaching you, Goldilocks; but for little girls of your age, I object strongly to night study. The morning and early afternoon are the proper times for you to study and recite, and the evening is the time to pet your old uncle."

"I, too, would gladly help you with your studies, but I agree with Uncle about the proper time for such things. If there were no good schools for you to attend, we should engage a governess for you; but such an arrangement is not always best, either. In a schoolroom, a child learns much from hearing the others recite, and is taught many, many things not in books. At school, too, she has playmates of her own age. So be ready to keep me company in the morning. I have missed by little companion very much during these weeks of vacation. The walk to school and back will do you good. I fear that you have been in the house entirely too much of late."

"O Father, I was just going to ask you to have Tom drive you to your office and drop me off at the convent. Then I wouldn't have to be away from the darling babies quite so long, you know."

"But what of us, I should like to know? Your father and I leave the house as early as you do, and do not return until six or after in the evening. He cannot even come home to luncheon. How about that, eh?"

"That is so, Uncle, isn't it? From half-past eight to six—how many hours is that?"

"Nine and one-half hours."

"Oh, dear, me! Well, if you and Father can stand it all that time, I ought to be able to stay away during school hours."

"In wet weather, of course, Tom will drive you to and from school, but on fine days you must be out of doors as much as possible. Then your appetite will improve, and you will grow strong, and those rosy cheeks which you brought from the seashore, but have since lost, will return. I fear that you are taking the babies too seriously. Remember, dear, you are not much more than a baby yourself."

"Why, Father! I am seven whole years and three whole months old!"

"Add three or four days and you will have it exactly. But in spite of all these years, months, and days, you are our little Mary and will still be so when you are twice seven and even three times seven years old."

"Twice seven is the same as seven twos, and three times seven is seven threes—then I shall have to fast. Surely, by that time, Father, you can't call me little. No one could call you and Uncle little, and I s'pose you are about twenty-one."

"You will have to add many years to seven threes for my age. Make it between seven fives and sixes, and Uncle's something more than seven fours."

"'M, 'm,—then how many sevens is Mr. Conway, Father? He looks almost as old as Santa Claus."

"He was seven times eleven years old last month."

"I know! the elevens are easy up to ten times eleven. Mr. Conway is seventy-seven; but I shall have to think about you and Uncle."

"No fair peeping into your arithmetic, young lady!" laughed the Doctor.

"That just reminds me of something. Will you please see Sister Florian in the morning, Father, and ask her to give me a new reader?"

"Have you lost your book, or is it worn out?"

"Neither, Father. It is too easy. It is only the Second Reader, and I can read all the lessons in it; so I think I had better have the Third; don't you?"

"Sister Florian will be the best judge of that, pet. Are you as well up in your other studies as you are in reading? How about number work?"

"That is the hardest thing of all, Father."

"Then it would be well to devote to that study the time when the other children are preparing their reading; would it not?"

"Ye—es, Father, I s'pose it would."

"And remember what I have said, dear, about Berta and Beth. Just look upon them as playmates, and Liza will attend to the many, many things that you have been doing to help Mother. Your studies will be duties enough for you until you are quite a little older; and all the daylight hours when you are not in school must be spent outdoors playing with Rosemary and those other little girls whom Mother said you might bring home from school with you last spring. Their parents are friends of ours."

"But can't I be with Mother and the babies at all, Father?"

"Indeed, yes! Mother or Aunt Mandy will walk down to the convent with the babies in their carriage to meet you every afternoon, and you may come home the long way if you like. You will have the whole evening to enjoy yourself in the house; and as the days grow shorter, you will not be able to stay outdoors until dinner time."

"Oh, goody! Will they soon begin to grow shorter, Father?"

"They began to do so two months ago," was the laughing reply.

"But if I eat more at meals, may I come in about five o'clock even if it is not getting dark?"

"Well, if you eat a great deal more, I may relent a little. A child of your age should not have it to say that she is not hungry when meal time comes."

"Why, I do believe I am hungry right now!"

"So am I! Come, let us play 'Old Mother Hubbard' and see if Susie put away any necks or backbones of those chickens we had for dinner," and the Doctor caught her up and carried her off to the kitchen.

"He is almost as much a child as she is," thought Mr. Selwyn. "Strange that her little head should be filled with such grown-up ideas and childish notions at the same time."

But it was not really so strange as Mr. Selwyn thought; for Mary's life had been spent for the most part among grown people, and the thoughtful care shown by her parents and uncle for one another had taught her many lessons of unselfishness and regard for the feelings of others. At the same time, she loved her dolls and toys, and played wonderful games of make believe, when she peopled her playroom with the little girls and boys who sometimes visited her. So, if in one way, she showed a wisdom beyond her years and behaved in a very motherly manner toward the twins, in another, she was just a happy child of seven, quite ready to join in the games and frolics of little children her own age, or of big children like the Doctor.

"The cupboard will surely be bare, Uncle, for it is too warm to keep things to eat in there now."

"We shall make believe that the icebox is the cupboard.... Oh, my!"

"Have you found something good? What is it?"

"Quite enough for a little spread for two. Hold this while I get these other things," and the Doctor handed her a platter with the greater part of a chicken on it. Then, with a chuckle, he took lettuce, celery, and fruit from the icebox.

"We shall have our spread on the kitchen table. Now for the pantry! This reminds me of old times. I remember well the many times Aunt Mandy caught me at the jam jar in this same old pantry."

"But surely Aunt Mandy didn't say anything to you for taking it."

"Didn't she, indeed! But it was not what she said, but what she did, that really counted. I was only a little shaver of five, though I am not excusing myself on that account; for I grew worse with age, and treated my friends through the pantry window. Where is that bread box!—Come, now, pull up a chair and begin. Your father does not know what he is missing. He thinks late suppers do not agree with old folks like him; but for young people like us—"

He was interrupted by a merry laugh from the little girl, who sat facing the open door, and turning, he saw his sister in the doorway.

"You two rogues! I came down to find Mary, for I was afraid she was walking in her sleep. Beth has been so restless that I have not been able to go to bed; and after she became quiet, I stole into Mary's room and found it empty."

"Come and have a few bites with us. You look worn out. Goldilocks came down to plan a surprise for you, which Rob and I nipped in the bud. I fear that she is somewhat disappointed; but you would agree with us, I am sure."

Many a time during the latter part of October did the two men regret that they had not granted the little girl's wish—not that their ideas on the subject had changed in the least, but because of an event which plunged every member of the household into intense suffering and grief.