id Mrs. Pepper sternly, deftly fastening the little buttons
tightly into place with quick, firm stitches, "better be glad you've got
them to sew at all. There now, here they are. Those won't come off in a
hurry!"

"Oh, mamsie!" cried Polly, ignoring for a moment the delights of the
finished shoe to fling her arms around her mother's neck and give her a
good hug. "You're just the splendidest, goodest mamsie in all the world.
And I'm a hateful, cross old bear, so I am!" she cried remorsefully,
buttoning herself into her boots. Which done, she flew at the rest of
her preparations and tried to make up for lost time.

But 'twas all of no use. The day seemed to be always just racing ahead
of her, and turning a corner, before she could catch up to it, and Ben
and the other boys only caught dissolving views of her as she flitted
through halls or over stairs.

"Where's Polly?" said Percy at last, coming with great dissatisfaction
in his voice to the library door. "We've called her, I guess a million
times, and she won't hurry."

"What do you want to have her do?" asked Jasper, looking up from the
sofa where he had flung himself with a book.

"Why, she said she'd make Van and me our sails you know," said Percy,
holding up a rather forlorn looking specimen of a boat, but which the
boys had carved with the greatest enthusiasm, "and we want her now."

"Can't you let her alone till she's ready to come?" said Jasper quickly.
"You're always teasing her to do something," he added.

"I didn't tease," said Percy indignantly, coming up to the sofa, boat
in hand, to enforce his words. "She said she'd love to do 'em, so there,
Jasper King!"

"Coming! coming!" sang Polly over the stairs, and bobbing into the
library, "Oh--here you are, Percy! I couldn't come before; mamsie wanted
me. Now, says I, for the sails." And she began to flap out a long white
piece of cotton cloth on the table to trim into just the desired shape.

"That isn't the way," said Percy, crowding up, the brightness that had
flashed over his face at Polly's appearance beginning to fade. "Hoh!
those won't be good for anything--those ain't sails."

"I haven't finished," said Polly, snipping away vigorously, and longing
to get back to mamsie. "Wait till they're done; then they'll be good--as
good as can be!"

"And it's bad enough to have to make them," put in Jasper, flinging
aside his book and rolling over to watch them, "without having to be
found fault with every