the doctor, picking her up unceremoniously and
kissing her. "I haven't time for play. You give it to the lucky person
you bought it for."

"That's Joan."

"Very well. When I want a game and have time, I will come up and play
with Joan. What else have you got there?"

"Oranges for mother--oranges and a ball aren't easy to carry together, and
I've got gloves for Mary, and a cup for daddy--at least, _we_ have, me and
Tom."

"My eye! you have been making Miss Babbs' fortune this morning! Where is
the cup? In the crown of your hat?"

"No, forchinately Faith is carrying that, or it would have been broken."

"That is fortunate indeed." At the mention of Faith, the doctor turned to
the elder sisters. "Ah, Miss Audrey," he cried, clasping her hand warmly,
"it is nice to see you home again! I began to think you had deserted us
for good. But you have come back at last to look after them all!
Well they needed an elder sister's help; it was time you came."

Audrey smiled and blushed prettily. "I want to be useful," she said, and
genuinely meant it. "When I have been here a little while I shall know
better what I can do."

She mistook the doctor's meaning. She did not realise that he meant that
her mother needed companionship and care; and Faith some help with the
heavy burden which weighed down her young shoulders. She thought he
referred to the house and the garden, and the muddle which reigned in
both. And she walked home with her head held high. People should soon
see that she, at any rate, knew how things should be done.

"Debby," she said sharply, as they passed through the garden on their way
home. "When you have taken in your parcels do come out and pick up that
old hat, and those dreadful old dolls, and carry them all up to your own
room. They make the garden look dreadfully untidy."

Debby stood still in the path, her oranges dropping one by one, unheeded,
through the bottom of the bag. Those dreadful old dolls! She could
scarcely believe her ears. Her precious babies, her Dorothy, and Gladys
and Dinah Isabella, called 'dreadful old dolls.' The colour mounted in
her cheeks, and the tears in her eyes.

"They are not old!" she cried indignantly, "and they are not--not
dreadful--they are lovely, they are darlings, and they have _got_ to stay
out of doors, they have been ill."

"Rubbish!" snapped Audrey irritably. "You don't care in the least how
untidy you make the place look. I wonder you