voice plaintive
with self-pity.

Shirley thought the moment auspicious to make a reach for a hot
biscuit. Over went her glass of milk and her fat little hand landed
in the butter dish. The telephone bell saved her, as far as Doctor
Hugh was concerned, and when he came back to tell Rosemary that he
would not be home till dinner time and to give her a list of the
time and places when he could be reached during the day, Winnie had
removed all traces of the accident.

"I guess you must think I'm a washing machine," she grumbled after
the doctor had gone. "That's the tenth clean runner we've had on the
table this week. If we were using table cloths every meal I'd have
to give up--no living woman could keep this family in table cloths!"

"Sarah, are you going to make the beds this morning?" asked
Rosemary, on her way to sweep the porch, a duty she had assumed.

"No, I'm not," returned Sarah with characteristic candor. "It's too
hot. Let 'em air till night. I want to play in the sand-box."

"Ray Anderson and me's going to play in the sand-box," said Shirley.
"You can't come--you take all the toys."

"Oh, Shirley, how cross you are!" cried Rosemary, aghast at the
frown on Shirley's pretty forehead. "Don't be so cranky, darling.
Sarah will play in one end of the box and you play in the other."

But Sarah, her nose in the air, announced that she wouldn't "have a
thing to do with the old sand-box," and she departed to sit in the
swing and read, leaving Rosemary to make the beds or "let them air"
as she decided.

Rosemary finished sweeping the porch and had just begun to make her
own bed, when her aunt called her.

"Shirley and that little Anderson boy are making so much noise, I
can't rest," Aunt Trudy complained. "I should think you could tell
them to play quietly, Rosemary. And I wish you wouldn't practise
this morning, dearie; my head is splitting and the piano does annoy
me so. This afternoon I'll take my sewing out under the tree and you
may have two hours to yourself, if you like."

Rosemary went down and suggested to Shirley and Ray that they make
sand pies instead of building a railroad, knowing from experience
that sand pies was a comparatively quiet play. Then she dusted her
beloved piano with a little lump in her throat. Mother had loved to
hear her practise and had liked to sit on summer mornings in a chair
close by, sewing and listening. Mother was an accomplished musician
and she knew and noted her littl