'The little ones are very apt to tear themselves, so I like to have
it ready.'

'How delicious! And you mend for them? I wish I had any one to mend
for. Please show me, and let me do it. I tried to tear the nasty
thing off, but it would not come. I wish Mamma would let me wear
sensible print like yours.'

'Are you laughing at us?' said Wilmet rather bluntly.

'No, indeed, not a bit,' said Marilda, or Mary Alda, eagerly. 'If you
only knew how tiresome it all is.'

'What is?'

'Why, being fine--having a governess, and talking French, and
learning to dance, and coming down into the drawing-room. Then
Grandmamma Kedge tells me how she used to run about in pattens, and
feed the chickens, and scrub the floor, and I do so wish I was her.
Can you scrub, and do those nice things?'

'Not a floor,' said Wilmet; 'and we live in the town.'

'So have we done till now; but Papa is going to get this place,
because he says it is family property; and I hope he will, for they
will never be able to screw me up here as they do at home. I say,
which is Fulbert! Won't your father punish him?'

'Oh, no! You should not have told, Marilda. We never tell Papa of
little tricks of the boys.'