tle girl. I don't want you to grow big
like Margaret. For if you should, some nice fellow will come along and
insist upon carrying you off, and then I should lose you. Whatever would
I do?"

That view of the matter was alarming to contemplate. She clung closer to
her father, and said, in a half-frightened tone, that she never would be
carried off. It quite reconciled her to the fact of not growing rapidly.

The girls all went down to see Nora Whitney one Saturday in June. It
looked rather threatening in the morning, but a yard or two of blue sky
gave them hope. Mr. Underhill took them all in the family carriage. Oh,
how lovely the little park looked with its soft grass and waving trees!
And in the area windows there were pots of flowers: ten-weeks' stock,
and spice pinks, and geraniums that were considered quite a rarity.

Nora was out on the front stoop with Pussy Gray, who arched his back and
waved his tail with an air of grandeur, and then sat down on the top
step and began to wash his face, while Father Underhill was planning to
take them all for a drive late in the afternoon.

Pussy Gray watched his little mistress out of one green eye, and washed
over one ear. He was just going over the other when Nora caught him,
"Why do you stop him?" asked Daisy.

"Because he wants to make it rain and spoil our day. Pussy Gray--if you
do!"

"But it wouldn't really?"

"Well, it's a sure sign when he goes over both ears. When I don't want
it to rain, I stop him."

"But suppose he does it when he is by himself?"

"I think sometimes he runs away and does it on the sly. Aunt Patty says
it is as sure as sure can be."

Pussy Gray winked at Hanny, as if he said he didn't believe in signs,
and that he should wash over both ears when he found a chance.

Dele was bright and merry. She "bossed" the house, for Mrs. Whitney had
subsided into novel-reading again, and now took books out of the
Mercantile Library. A woman was doing the Saturday morning's work, and
scrubbing the areas. After that she went over the front one with a red
wash that looked like paint, and freshened it. The girls took a run in
the yard. There was a long flower-bed down the side of the fence, and at
one end all manner of sweet herbs, lavender, thyme, and rosemary, sweet
verbena, and then tansy and camomile, and various useful things.

"Camomile tea is good for you when you lose your appetite," said Nora;
"but it's awful bitter. Aunt Patty cuts off the lea