so novel to a broom
or dust-pan, but they were so tired of their work, that Bea's really
seemed delightful and easy and much to be envied.

"You must have been anxious to get to work," said that sister, coming
down the stairs with her post ornaments, and interrupting a lively
skirmish, where brooms flew around through the air, with a cheerful
disregard for the swinging lamp, or any one's head.

"Anxious to get through, you mean," laughed Kat, throwing down her
weapon, and tumbling her dishevelled hair into a net. "Hollo, Kittie,
your corners are swept cleaner'n mine."

"Of course," answered Kittie complacently, and turning her broom right
end up, in a spasm of housewifely care. "You better go to work and do
yours over; that's in the bargain, isn't it, Bea?"

"Work to be done well," said Bea, surveying Kat's corners with a
critical eye. "And those are not clean; you've slipped right by them."

"Just as well," asserted Kat, whisking her broom about and scattering
the dust that disgraced a small corner over such extent of surface that
it could not be noticed. "That's the way. What's the use of being so
particular?"

Bea shook her head and declared it wouldn't do, then gave to Kittie the
overwhelming responsibility of keeping Kat straight, and departed for
the kitchen.

"Set the blind to lead the blind," laughed Kat, spinning about on her
heels, and finishing up with a hearty hug for Kittie, and the penitent
remark: "You are getting lots better than I, that's a fact; and I must
begin to brush up and sober down, or I'll be the black sheep of the
flock,--as if I wasn't always that. But you really are getting terrible
good, Kittie; I've seen it for a long time and it makes me
uncomfortable; spin around and be gay like you used to."

"Nonsense," laughed Kittie, then looked sober, and sat down upon the
stairs suddenly. "I'm not good, Kat, it isn't that; I don't know how to
be; but some way, I can't be as terribly wild and gay as I used to be,
there seems to be so much more to think about now, and seems to me we
ought to help think as much as the others, and besides, I don't think we
ought to be so wild any more; why, Kat, we're in our teens!"

"Suppose we are, dear me!" cried Kat, standing off and surveying her
sister with a sort of vague alarm, "what ever is the matter with this
family? Olive is getting so pleasant, and wears ribbons, and you're not
going to be wild any more, and have gone to thinking; you'll both di