urse, but I'm just
spoiling for something to do." And she gave Aunt Nell a reassuring hug
and kiss.

"You're a little brick, Judy--of course we'll manage. I'll 'phone for
Mrs. Webster to come this morning instead of this afternoon to look
after Hugh, and then you and I can do the rest."

But alack! Mrs. Webster's sister answered the 'phone--she was very
sorry, her sister was in bed with tonsillitis and she had just sent for
the doctor--it would be a week or two, anyway, before she could come
back to look after the baby.

Here was news, indeed--Bobby and Hugh were work enough for one person at
any time. Baby Hugh had a cold, and was cross and fretful because a
certain tooth was reluctant about making its first appearance.

They had a busy day. Aunt Nell went out in the afternoon to try her luck
at various employment agencies and Judith took the children for a walk.
She rather enjoyed it at first, but after three-year-old Bobby had
demanded the repetition of the story of "The Three Bears" for the sixth
time, and had fiercely resented the changing of a phrase with "Dat's not
in the tory," Judith began to feel tired and cross.

Doris was very little trouble, for she was, as usual, entirely engrossed
in an endless game of her own invention. She furnished each house they
passed with a large family and gave every member a name and occupation:
thus the big white house at the corner where Judge Wilton lived was
peopled in Doris's imagination with Mr. and Mrs. Black and their eight
children, Mary and Martha, Robert and Thomas, Geoffrey and Susan, Billy
and Minnie. Judith could hear her describing them. "Mary is a cook, she
writes nice letters and makes lemon pies; Martha is a nice girl, she has
yellow hair and blue eyes; Robert is tall and strong, he is a coachman
and squints with his left eye"; and so on and so on. A few families of
this size absorbed Doris's attention for hours at a time.

Judith took most comfort out of Baby Hugh; he was so sweet and so
kissable, his eyes so blue and his cheeks so like wild roses that
sometimes Judith felt that she would just have to take a little bite out
of the adorable crease at the back of his neck.

The first of the precious two holiday weeks was gone before either Aunt
Nell or Judith had accomplished any of the things they had meant to do,
and the good times, especially Nancy's visit, which Judith had looked
forward to with such pleasure, seemed to have vanished into thin air.