er go to bed with the chickens--eh, my
lassie!"

"No, Mrs. Mac; I don't want to," complained the sleepy Dot. "I've got a
bed of my own."

"I'll go with her," said Tess, knowing that her little sister did not
like to retire alone, even if she might object to the company of
chickens.

Really, none of them studied much on this evening; but they had a happy
time. All, possibly, save Sammy. The thought of going to school once
again made that embryo pirate very despondent.

"'Tain't that I wouldn't like to go with the fellers, and play at
recess, and hear the organ play in the big hall, and spin tops on the
basement play-room floor, and all _that_," grumbled Sammy. "But they do
try to learn us such perfectly silly things."

"What silly things?" demanded Agnes with amusement.

"Why, all 'bout 'rithmetic. Huh! Can't a feller count on his fingers?
What were they given us for, I'd like to know?" demanded this youthful
philosopher.

"Ow! ow!" murmured Neale, vastly amused.

"Huh!" went on Sammy. "Last teacher I had--mine and Tessie's--was all
the time learning us maxims, and what things meant; like _love_, and
_charity_ and _happiness_. She was so silly, she was!

"That Iky Goronofsky is the thick one," added Sammy, with a grin of
recollection. "When she was trying to make us kids understand the
difference between the meaning of those three words he couldn't get it
into his head. So she gave him three buttons, one for love, one for
charity and one for happiness, and made him take 'em home to study."

"What did he do with them!" asked Neale, interested.

"Why, when she asked Iky the next time about love, charity and
happiness, he didn't know any more than he did before," said Sammy, with
disgust. 'Where's your buttons, Iky?' she asks him, and Iky hauls out
two of 'em.

"'There's love, Miss Shipman, and there's charity,' says Iky, 'but my
mother sewed happiness on my waist this morning.' Did you ever hear of
such a dunce as that kid?" concluded Sammy, with disgust.

Sunday was always a busy day, if a quiet one, at the old Corner House.
Everything had been done to prepare for the expected guests; but several
times Agnes had to enter the two big rooms which were to be devoted to
the use of Cecile Shepard and her brother, just for the sake of making
sure that all was right and ready.

In just what style the Shepards lived Agnes did not know. That they
were very well-mannered and were plainly used to what is really
es