Elizabeth Brewster had been awake in the night, as was her custom, making her noiseless rounds of the children's beds by the dim light of a candle. A cold wind had sprung up, with driving snow and sleet, and she feared its incursion into her nursery. Daylight found her in the kitchen superintending the slow movements of Celia, who upset the coffee-pot, dropped a soft-boiled egg on the hearth and stumbled over her untied shoe-strings in her untutored efforts to assist.

Close upon the hurried departure of her husband to his office in a distant part of the city, came the sound of small feet and voices from above. With Sam's kiss still warm on her lips she ran lightly upstairs. Carroll, partly dressed, stood before the mirror brushing his hair, in funny imitation of his father's careful manner of accomplishing that necessary process; while Doris scampered wildly about in her night-gown, her small bare feet pink with cold.

"I wanted to see my daddy," she pouted, as her mother remonstrated. "I wanted to tell him somesing."

"You can tell him to-night, girlie.—Yes, baby; in just a minute!" Elizabeth's fingers were flying as she pulled on the little girl's warm stockings and buttoned her shoes. "Now then, kittykins, slip into your warm dressing-gown and see how nicely you can brush your teeth, while mother—What is it, Carroll? Oh, a button off? Well, I'll sew it on. Give Buddy his picture-book.—Yes, pet; mother knows you're hungry; you shall have breakfast in just a minute. See the pretty pictures.—That's right, Carroll, my work-basket. Now stand still while I—Oh, Doris dear! Did you drop the glass?"

"It was all slippy, mother, an' I couldn't hold it. It's on the floor, mother, all in teeny, weeny pieces!"

"Don't step on them! Wait, I'll sweep up the pieces.—Yes, baby, mother hears you! See the pretty picture of the little pigs! Those nice little pigs aren't crying!—Wait, Carroll, till mother fastens the thread. There, that's done! Now put the basket—What is it, Doris? Oh, poor little girl; you've cut your finger. Don't cry! But you see you should have minded mother and not touched the broken glass. Now we'll tie it up in this nice soft cloth, and——

"Yes, Celia; what is it? Oh, the butcher? Well, let me think—We had beefsteak last night. Tell him to bring chops—nice ones; not like the last.—Oh, I must run down and speak to that boy; he's so careless with the orders! Tell him to wait a minute, Celia.—Carroll, won't you show baby his pictures and keep him quiet till I—No, Doris; you mustn't touch that bottle; that is father's bay-rum. Put it down, quick!"

The meddlesome little fingers let go the bottle with a jerk. It fell to the floor, its fragrant contents pouring over the carpet. "Oh, you naughty child! What will mother do with you? All of daddy's nice—Yes, Celia; I hear you. I am coming directly. I must wipe up this—He says he can't wait? Well, tell him to bring two pounds of nice lamb chops—rib chops. If they are like the last ones he brought tell him I shall send them right back.

"Now, Doris, I want you to look at mother. Why did you climb up in that chair and pull the cork out of the bottle, when I've told you never to meddle with the things on the chiffoniÈre?"

"I should think that child would know better after a while," put in Carroll, with the solemn air of an octogenarian grandfather. "You ought to have remembered the salad oil last week, Doris, and the ink the week before!"

"Don't interrupt, Carroll; I'm talking to Doris just now. Look at mother; don't hang your head."

"I wanted to—smell of it," muttered the child, digging her round chin into her neck, while she eyed her mother from under puckered brows. "Daddy said I might; lots of times he lets me smell it."

"Yes, when he holds the bottle; but now, you see, poor daddy won't have any nice bay-rum the next time he wants to shave. He'll say 'who spilled my bay-rum?'"

"It smells good!" observed Doris, filling the judicial pause with a rapturous giggle.

"But it will all evaporate before night," said Elizabeth, taking up her youngest, who had thrown The Adventures of Seven Little Pigs on the floor and was protesting loudly at the delay.

"How do you spell evaporate, mother?" asked Carroll. "That's a funny word—e-vap-o-rate. What does it mean, mother?"

"It means to go away into the air—to disappear," Elizabeth told him. "See the big spot on the floor, and smell how fragrant the air is. Now we'll go down to breakfast and I will open the windows; when I come back after a while the bay-rum will be gone; it will be evaporated. Do you understand? Doris can't pick it up and put it back into the bottle, no matter how sorry she may feel to think she has been so careless."

Two widely opened pairs of serious eyes travelled from the lessening spot on the floor to her face.

"I think it would be nice to spill a bottle of 'fumery every day an' smell it 'vaporate," gurgled Doris, showing her dimples.

Elizabeth lifted the mischievous face toward hers with an admonitory finger-tip. "I'll tell you, Doris, what you must do to make it right with father," she said slowly and impressively. "You must take all the money out of your bank and buy a new bottle of bay-rum."

She felt that for once, at least, she had made the punishment fit the crime to a nicety.

"Not all my money, mother?"

"It will take every cent of it, I am afraid."

The small culprit clapped her hands and executed an impromptu pirouette. "Oh, goody, goody, Carroll! mother says I may spend all my money; won't that be fun? When, mother, when can I buy the bottle for daddy? To-day? Say yes, mother; please say yes!"

Elizabeth buried her face in her baby's fat neck to conceal the rebellious smile that would curve her young lips, just when she knew she ought to be grave and severe.

"If you are a good girl in kindergarten I will take you to the store this afternoon," she said finally, with an undercurrent of wonder at the punishment which had so suddenly been metamorphosed into a reward. These singular transformations were apt to occur when her small daughter was concerned. She reflected upon the recurrence of the phenomenon as she brushed the silken mass of Doris' blond hair and fastened up her frock in the back, both operations being impeded by the wrigglings of the stalwart infant in her lap.

"I like to smell 'fumery," announced the young person, at the conclusion of her toilet, "an' I love—I jus' love to hear pennies jingle in my pocket. Can I empty the money out of my bank now, mother? Can I?" She swung backward and forward on her toes like a bird poised for flight.

"You must eat your breakfast and go to school," Elizabeth said, trying hard to keep her rising impatience out of her voice. "And after school——"

"After school can I take my bank? The very minute it's out? Can I, mother; can I?"

"You should say may I; not can I, Doris. Yes; if you're a good girl in kindergarten, and keep hold of Carroll's hand all the way going and coming, why then——"

"I don't like to take hold of hands with Carroll," objected Doris, drawing her lips into a scarlet bud. "I like to walk by my lone; but I promise I won't get run over or anything. I'll be just as good!"

It wasn't far to the little school where both children spent the morning. Elizabeth watched her darlings quite to the corner, pleased to observe that they were clinging obediently to each other's hands and apparently engaged in amicable conversation.

Then her thoughts turned with some anxiety upon the approaching visit of Miss Tripp. She was very fond of Evelyn Tripp, she assured herself, and if it were not for Celia, and the spare-room (which needed new curtains, new paper and a larger rug to cover the worn place in the carpet), and if—she wrinkled her pretty forehead unbecomingly—the children could only be depended upon. One could not safely predict the conduct of Doris from hour to hour; and while, of course, Carroll was the best child in the world; still, even Carroll—upon occasions—could be very trying to the nerves. As for Richard, he was the baby; and no one, not even Evelyn Tripp, could fail to understand the subordinate position of the average household in its relations to the baby of the house. She kissed and hugged the small tyrant rapturously, while she set forth a plenitude of building-blocks, picture-books, trains, engines and wagons of miniature sizes and brilliant colours calculated to enchain the infant attention.

"Now, darling," she cooed, "here are all your pretty playthings; sit right down and play, and be a good little man, while mother runs out in the kitchen a minute to see what Celia is doing."

Richard surveyed his spread-out possessions with a distinctly bored expression on his round cherubic countenance. He had seen and handled those trains, wagons, engines and blocks many, many times before, and they did not appeal to his infant imagination with the same alluring force as did some other objects in the room. Had his mother seen fit to install the scarlet locomotive, for example, on the lofty mantle-piece with a stern interdiction upon it, it would doubtless have appeared supremely attractive. But the infant mind does not differ in essentials from that of the adult. The difficult, the forbidden, the almost unattainable fires the ambition and stiffens the will. There was a glass tank in the bay-window, situated on what appeared to Richard as a lofty and well-nigh inaccessible table. It contained a large quantity of water of a greenish hue, as well as a number of swift-moving, glittering, golden things which flashed in and out between the green, waving plants rooted in the sand at the bottom.

Now Richard had been sternly forbidden to touch this enticing combination of objects. Nevertheless he had done it; not only once, but twice—thrice. He recalled with rapture the cool, slippery feel of the stones; the entrancing drip and gurgle of the water; the elusive, flitting shapes of the yellow things, "sishes," he called them fondly, which an adroit hand could occasionally manage to seize and hold for a brief instant.

A stray sunbeam darted into the aquarium and lit up its mysterious depths with irresistible gorgeousness. Richard gazed and gazed; then he turned and kicked the red locomotive; under the impact of his pudgy foot it dashed with futile energy into the ruck of wagons, cars and building-blocks and lay there on its side, its feeble little wheels turning slowly.

"Nas'y ol' twain!" muttered the infant disgustedly.