r little sister alone, and don't you, Norah, be vexing him or
you'll deserve all you get. Run inside, Julia Elizabeth, cut a slice
of bread for the twins, and put a bit of sugar on it, honey. Yes,
alanna, you can have a slice for yourself, too, you poor child you,
well you deserve it."

Mrs. Makebelieve was sitting up in the bed with two pillows propping
up her back. One of her long thin arms was stretched out to preserve
the twins from being bruised against the wall in their play. Plainly
they had become great friends with her, for every now and then they
swarmed over her, and a hugging match of extreme complexity ensued.
She looked almost her usual self, and all the animation that had been
so marked a feature of her personality had returned to her.

"Are you better, mother?" said Mary.

Mrs. Makebelieve took her daughter's head in her hands and kissed her
until the twins butted them apart clamoring for caresses.

"I am, honey," said she. "Those children done me good. I could have
got up at one o'clock, I felt so well, but Mrs. Cafferty thought I'd
better not."

"I did so," said Mrs. Cafferty. "Not a foot do you stir out of that
bed till your daughter comes home, ma'am, said I. For do you see,
child, many's the time you'd be thinking you were well and feeling as
fit as a fiddle, and nothing would be doing you but to be up and
gallivanting about, and then the next day you'd have a relapse, and
the next day you'd be twice as bad, and the day after that they'd be
measuring you for your coffin maybe. I knew a woman was taken like
that--up she got; I'm as well as ever I was, said she, and she ate a
feed of pig's cheek and cabbage and finished her washing, and they
buried her in a week. It's the quare thing, sickness. What I say is
when you're sick get into bed and stop there."

"It's easy saying that," said Mrs. Makebelieve.

"Sure, don't I know, you poor thing you," said Mrs. Cafferty, "but
you should stay in bed as long as you are able to anyhow."

"How did you get on with Mrs. O'Connor?" said Mrs. Makebelieve.

"That's the mistress, isn't it?" queried Mrs. Cafferty; "an ould
devil, I'll bet you."

Mrs. Makebelieve rapidly and lightly sketched Mrs. O'Connor's leading
peculiarities.

"It's queer the people one has to work for, God knows it is," said
Mrs. Cafferty.

At this point a grave controversy on work might have arisen, but the
children, caring little for conversation, broke into so tumultuous
play tha