hild is angelic and
the hot weather and their teeth troubles fretted the small people
sadly. Rosemary was sometimes at her wits' end to keep her charges
amused and there were days when she longed to fly home and rest her
tired head on the cool pillow on her own little bed. She had never
been forced to do anything steadily for long after she tired of it,
and to be obliged to smile and play with a wailing, discontented
baby on a hot, muggy afternoon did seem more than she could stand.
But she had plenty of perseverance, had Rosemary, and when she once
made up her mind to do a thing she stuck it out. Sarah and Shirley
had ceased to worry about the ring. Rosemary would make it all right
again for them--of that they had no doubt.

But if Aunt Trudy slept long hours and did not interfere with the
goings and comings of her young nieces, she was not quite so
unobservant as they sometimes thought.

"It seems to me that Rosemary is out of the house a good deal," she
remarked one morning to Winnie. "She ought to take more of an
interest in things here at the house."

"Well, I suppose it's only natural she should find a good deal to do
outside," answered Winnie, who had not been blind to Rosemary's
frequent absences, cautiously. "She's young, you know, and doing
your duty gets tiresome after a bit."

But to herself, Winnie admitted that Rosemary seemed to have
absolved herself from any responsibility toward her sisters. "Left
them to shift for themselves," was the way Winnie put it. She was
puzzled and also disappointed in her favorite, for indifference of
any kind had never been a Rosemary trait.

"She ought to be looking after Sarah and Shirley some of the time,"
grumbled Winnie. "Those young ones are under my feet continually.
The least Rosemary can do is to read to 'em now and then to keep
them quiet."

That very afternoon Miss Mason, Rosemary's music teacher called to
see Aunt Trudy. Rosemary's music was falling below its usual
standard and that was a pity. Was she practising as faithfully as
usual?

"I think it is a shame to waste all that money on music lessons, if
you won't practise, Rosemary," announced her aunt at the dinner
table that night.

CHAPTER XII

ONE DISASTROUS AFTERNOON

"I do practise," said Rosemary desperately.

"Well not enough, or Miss Mason wouldn't say your work was falling
below your usual standard," Aunt Trudy insisted. "She was here this
afternoon, Hugh, and she asked me wheth