d dry after the storm, and we may go with her. You know she wouldn't
take us in the fall, 'cause we had whooping-cough and it was damp
there. Now we shall see all the nice things; wont it be fun?" observed
Bab, after a pause.

"Yes, indeed! Ma says there's lots of books in one room, and I can look
at 'em while she goes round. May be I'll have time to read some, and
then I can tell you," answered Betty, who dearly loved stories and
seldom got any new ones.

"I'd rather see the old spinning-wheel up garret, and the big pictures,
and the queer clothes in the blue chest. It makes me mad to have them
all shut up there when we might have such fun with them. I'd just like
to bang that old door down!" And Bab twisted round to give it a thump
with her boots. "You needn't laugh; you know you 'd like it as much as
me," she added, twisting back again, rather ashamed of her impatience.

"I didn't laugh."

"You did! Don't you suppose I know what laughing is?"

"I guess I know I didn't."

"You did laugh! How darst you tell such a fib?"

"If you say that again I'll take Belinda and go right home; then what
will you do?"

"I'll eat up the cake."

"No, you wont! It's mine, ma said so, and you are only company, so
you'd better behave or I wont have any party at all, so now."

This awful threat calmed Bab's anger at once, and she hastened to
introduce a safer subject.

"Never mind; don't let's fight before the children. Do you know ma says
she will let us play in the coach-house next time it rains, and keep
the key if we want to."

"Oh, goody! that's because we told her how we found the little window
under the woodbine, and didn't try to go in, though we might have just
as easy as not," cried Betty, appeased at once, for after a ten years'
acquaintance she had grown used to Bab's peppery temper.

"I suppose the coach will be all dust and rats and spiders, but I don't
care. You and the dolls can be the passengers, and I shall sit up in
front and drive."

"You always do. I shall like riding better than being horse all the
time with that old wooden bit in my mouth, and you jerking my arms
off," said poor Betty, who was tired of being horse all the time.

"I guess we'd better go and get the water now," suggested Bab, feeling
that it was not safe to encourage her sister in such complaints.

"It is not many people who would dare to leave their children all alone
with such a lovely cake, and know they wouldn't pick at it," sai