"Celia," said Miss Linn, the next day, "I understand it perfectly; Elinor has been sick so much that the younger children have been left with the servants and this is the result. Now we must make May over."

Miss Linn and Miss Celia were sewing in their morning room. They were old-fashioned gentlewomen, not altogether in touch with modern habits and they held to their needlework of a forenoon as religiously as though it had been a practise ordained by a bishop, and when Miss Linn said, "We must make May over," she spoke as though the petticoated fraud was a misfit garment.

Now Miss Celia never opposed the will or wishes of her elder sister. Contradiction was not a weapon to be used with stately Miss Linn, who was, in the phrase of their servant, Margery, "terrible sot in her way!" But Miss Celia did venture to say,—

"May is a trifle hoydenish, perhaps, but time will remove that blemish from her bearing without our assistance, sister."

"She is incorrigible!" sighed Miss Linn. "I saw her this morning jumping over the fence—the front fence! Of course I stopped that, but when I asked her if she wasn't ashamed, she said, 'No'm, that's the best standing jump I ever made!' I admit I can't understand how Elinor's daughter can be such a tomboy!"

"We have left youth far behind us, Beulah; you must remember that. We can't realize just what it is to be young and full of life."

"I like a girl to have some sense of propriety. May is entirely without any. I saw her not an hour ago with her arm around Patsy Dunn's neck. I called her into the house at once and told her that it was highly improper for her to be so familiar with boys. What do you think she said?"

"I can't imagine."

"'Patsy is a dandy, auntie! I'd like to put on the gloves with him!' I didn't understand what she meant, but I took her desire for gloves to be a favorable omen and I told her I hoped she would put on gloves and keep them on all the time when she was out of doors. But I doubt if she will do it—she only laughed and said she hadn't 'quite sand enough for that'—whatever that means."

Miss Celia groped for the meaning of this speech and failing to grasp it said nothing, but sewed on diligently.

"My mind is made up," continued Miss Linn. "That girl shall be made over before she goes home to Elinor. I have planned it all out. I never closed my eyes last night!—and I shall begin at once."

"What is your plan?"

"You will see," said Miss Linn, mysteriously. She laid her sewing aside and rang a small silver bell, peremptorily.

A moment later old Margery appeared at the door. "Did you ring, mem?"

"Where is Miss May?"

"In the back yard, mem," answered Margery with reluctance that did not escape Miss Linn's keen eyes.

"What is she doing?"

Margery hesitated. Tale-bearing was against her principles, but no one hesitated long before replying to Miss Linn, and the old servant answered, "She's helping John saw wood, mem."

If a bombshell had exploded in that quiet room the effect upon the Misses Linn could not have been more startling.

"Do you hear that, Celia? Is that merely a little hoydenish? Margery, send Miss May to me."

"Yes, mem," answered Margery, wishing with all her heart that she had not heard Miss Linn's bell.

When Gay flashed into the room a moment later both aunts were sewing composedly and neither looked up immediately. Wasting time in the house when the outside world was flooded with August sunshine was not to Gay's taste, but politeness demanded it, so he shifted from one foot to the other like an uneasy chicken, until Miss Linn said,—

"Won't you sit down?"

"I will," said Gay, with emphasis that said, "I will but I don't want to."

"What have you been doing?" questioned Miss Linn.

"Sawing wood," Gay replied, animatedly. "I can saw a stick quite straight. Did you ever try to saw wood, Aunt Beulah?"

Miss Linn did not answer at once; such a question deprived her of speech, but at length she said,—

"Most assuredly not."

"I think you'd like it," said Gay, with increasing animation. "First you put your saw on the stick and it wobbles all around before you can make it stay anywhere. Then, when you have made a little place for the saw, the saw sticks right in it and you pull and up comes the stick and your foot flies off it! Then you begin again and work a little way into the stick and everything goes beautifully till you strike a knot or something and the old saw won't budge an inch! So you lift it out of the hole and begin again—sawing wood is all beginning again; that's the way it's done and pretty, soon away goes the saw, squealing and creaking, and you are so excited at that time that you work away like mad, and, then, all of a sudden the saw goes through, with a sort of surprise and you go on top of it, the stick falls apart—and there you are!"

As Gay illustrated his description as he gave it, using a Venetian dagger for a saw, a Swiss paper-cutter for a stick of wood and a Fayal foot-stool for a saw-horse, the ladies were clearly instructed in the mysteries of wood sawing.

"My dear niece," said Miss Linn, slowly and impressively, "sawing wood is not a fitting employment for a little girl who wants to be a lady when she grows up. I suppose that is what you aspire to be, isn't it?"

Gay's eyes twinkled in appreciation of the situation, as he said,—

"I don't think I care anything about it; and I don't think I could be a lady if I tried."

"But you are willing to try?"

"Yes, I'll try," said Gay, still dimpling.

Poor Miss Linn was so agitated by this brief encounter with her supposed niece that she resolved to postpone the "making over," so she said,—

"You may go out again, but you must not saw any more wood."

"Not just one stick?"

"Not one."

"Very well, Aunt Beulah."

When Gay left the room Miss Linn said, meekly,—

"I really don't know where to begin with her!"

"She has one excellent trait, Beulah; she obeys without question or rebellion."

"I must think about it," said Miss Linn, referring, of course, to "making May over."

But the good lady did not have an opportunity to think about it then; a loud shriek ran through the house, and Margery ran into the room, crying,—

"She's cut off her foot! She's cut off her foot!"

The ladies followed Margery through the house into the back yard, where they saw Gay dancing wildly around on one foot, holding the other up with both hands.

"May, didn't you promise me not to saw wood?"

"I didn't saw it; I chopped it."

"There is no difference," said Miss Linn, meaning in the spirit of the offense.

"Oh, yes, there is; you do one with a saw and the other with an ax!"

Then the hopping ceased suddenly; Gay sank to the ground and there was a great flurry. John ran for the doctor, and Margery bore Gay up-stairs, into the little, white guest-chamber, and laid him on the bed.