d if I sat here with you
for a little while, Mrs. Carlyle, and did some darning?"

"It would be the greatest pleasure to me, dear. I was longing for someone
to talk to. I tried to mend some of the stockings myself, but I only
managed to do one pair for Debby to put on. My eyes ached so. One seems
to twist them if one tries to do fine work when lying down."

"Of course one does. Mrs. Carlyle," eagerly, "will you let the stocking
basket be my charge while I am here? I love to have a big pile of work to
do, and make my way through it. Would it bother you if I worked up here
sometimes?"

"Not in the least, dear child. There is nothing I should enjoy more.
I often long for company, but ours is a busy household. With only one
servant, it takes the girls all their time to keep the house in order."

Irene stooped low over the stocking-basket, lest her face should reveal
anything.

"Of course it is too much for them," Mrs. Carlyle went on anxiously,
"and we shall have to have in extra help when the holidays are over, and
their new governess comes. They can't possibly do their lessons and the
housework as well. Next year I hope to be about again, and able to take
some of the load off their shoulders, but," with a little sigh, "next year
is a long way off."

"I wish I could help," said Irene. "I love housework, and keeping things
nice. I am longing for the time when we shall have a house again.
Mrs. Carlyle, have you any dark blue darning wool that I can mend Tom's
stockings with?"

"No, dear, I have not, I have taken up that pair ever so many times and
put them down again because I had no wool to mend them with."

Irene thrust her hand in, "Um!" Someone had not been so particular, she
thought, as her eye fell on a brown darn on the heel, and a black one at
the back of the leg.

"Irene, don't you think you could drop the formal name, and call me
'Aunt Kitty'? I wish you would, dear. I have no nieces or nephews of my
own, and I have always longed to be 'aunt' to someone."

"Why, of course I will, I should love to, Aunt Kitty--don't you have a
glass of milk about this time? Shall I ask for it for you?"

"Thank you--I think they must have forgotten it." She did not add that
five days out of every seven the glass of milk was forgotten either
entirely, or until it was so close on dinner-time that she could not take
it.

"I won't bother Mary to bring it, I will go and get it, if you don't mind
my going i