and the former immediately set to work
to gather together the scattered possessions and put them away, for she
was tidier-in-general to the household, and could never by any
possibility bring herself to sit down comfortably in a room where a
picture hung awry, or a tablecloth dipped unevenly at the corner. The
while she moved about she cast a pensive glance at the newcomer, and
exclaimed regretfully--

"Kitty doesn't approve. I saw it in her face the moment I came into the
room. I knew she wouldn't, and I don't know that I do, either. It's a
great risk!"

"I haven't heard anything to approve of yet. Chrissie has been too
excited to descend to details. You seem to have been very busy! I
never heard of any news when I was here yesterday."

There was a tinge of displeasure in the voice in which the last sentence
was spoken, and Agatha, the tenderhearted, was quick to note it, and to
explain away the misconception.

"There was nothing to hear. It happened later. There are two things we
want to tell you about. One is a piece of news from the outside, and
the other is our own special affair; but of course it's not really
settled, for, as mother said, until you had been consulted, nothing
definite could be decided."

"Think not, indeed!" said Kitty shortly. She put her hand in her pocket
and drew forth a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, which she placed, not
on the bridge, but on the extreme tip of her nose. Her curly hair was
roughened over her shoulders, the brown ribbon bow stood up erect at the
top of her head; her arms were folded in deliberate inelegance, and she
gazed over the spectacles with an air of grandmotherly condescension,
comically at variance with her appearance.

"Let me hear about it at once, or Miss Phelps will arrive, and I shall
burst with curiosity in the middle of lessons. What is it that you want
to do?"

Elsie, Agatha, and Christabel immediately proceeded to explain the
situation in characteristic Rendell fashion, all speaking together, and
continuing to speak, without being in the least disconcerted by the
babble evoked. Elsie whined, Agatha gurgled, and Chrissie drawled,
while the listener rolled her eyes from one to another, catching a
phrase here, a phrase there, until at length some dawning of the
situation began to make itself known.

"A sale of work! We are to slave away making pin-cushions from now
until July, and then sell them to some one else! I understand that; bu