years and ten
themselves, do not do it.

It turned into regular Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Three
girls at first, then six, then less again,--sometimes only one or
two; until they gradually came up to and settled at, an average of
nine or ten.

The first Saturday they took them as they were. The next time they
gave them a stick of candy each, the first thing, then Hazel's
fingers were sticky, and she proposed the wash-basin all round,
before they went up-stairs. The bright tin bowl was ready in the
sink, and a clean round towel hung beside; and with some red and
white soap-balls, they managed to fascinate their dirty little
visitors into three clean pairs of hands, and three clean faces as
well.

The candy and the washing grew to be a custom; and in three weeks'
time, watching for a hot day and having it luckily on a Saturday,
they ventured upon instituting a whole bath, in big round tubs, in
the back shed-room, where a faucet came in over a wash bench, and a
great boiler was set close by.

They began with a foot-paddle, playing pond, and sailing chips at
the same time; then Luclarion told them they might have tubs full,
and get in all over and duck, if they liked; and children who may
hate to be washed, nevertheless are always ready for a duck and a
paddle. So Luclarion superintended the bath-room; Diana helped her;
and Desire and Hazel tended the shop. Luclarion invented a
shower-bath with a dipper and a colander; then the wet, tangled hair
had to be combed,--a climax which she had secretly aimed at with a
great longing, from the beginning; and doing this, she contrived
with carbolic soap and a separate suds, and a bit of sponge, to give
the neglected little heads a most salutary dressing.

Saturday grew into bath-day; soap-suds suggested bubbles; and the
ducking and the bubbling were a frolic altogether.

Then Hazel wished they could be put into clean clothes each time;
wouldn't it do, somehow?

But that would cost. Luclarion had come to the limit of her purse;
Hazel had no purse, and Desire's was small.

"But you see they've _got_ to have it," said Hazel; and so she went
to her mother, and from her straight to Uncle Oldways.

They counted up,--she and Desire, and Diana; two little common
suits, of stockings, underclothes, and calico gowns, apiece;
somebody to do a washing once a week, ready for the change; and
then--"those horrid shoes!"

"I don't see how you can do it," said Mrs. Ripwinkley. "