delight,
for it was a perfect paradise to her.

She herself had many preparations to make--deciding which dolls to take
and which to leave at home, and getting them all ready for whatever was
to be their fate. It also took a good deal of time to choose from her
little library the few books her mamma allowed her to take for rainy
days. It was a weighty matter, too, to select a suitable present for
Evaline, the little girl at the farmhouse, as her father suggested she
should do, and gave her money to buy it.

Then Jennie was very much on her mind.

"What will she do for soup and jelly and things when we are away,
mamma?" she asked anxiously.

"I shall tell Katie to carry her something now and then," Mrs. Ashford
replied. "Besides, Cousin Alice will be in town until August, and she
will look out for Jennie. Then Mrs. Scott told me the other day that she
had got all her back rent paid up now, and she expects to have three
days' work every week all summer; so they will get on very well."

Another day Marty came home from Jennie's in distress.

"Mamma," she said, "the doctor says Jennie may soon begin to sit up in
an easy-chair; and they haven't got any. Their two chairs are the most
_uneasy_ things I ever saw in my life. Now, how is she going to sit up?"

Mrs. Ashford laughed as she said, "Well, I was going to give you a
surprise, but I may as well tell you now that I have sent that old
rocking-chair that was up in the storeroom to be mended, and am going to
give it to Mrs. Scott."

Marty was overjoyed to hear this.

"And, oh! mamma, wont you give them the small table that stands in the
third-story hall? You always say it is only in the way there, and it
would be so nice beside Jennie's bed to put her things on, instead of a
chair."

"Yes, I suppose they might as well have it."

"And the red cover that belongs to it, mamma?"

"O Marty, Marty!" exclaimed her mother, laughing. "How many more things
will you want for Jennie? But the red cover may go too."

These things were sent, together with some of Marty's underclothing, a
pair of half-worn slippers, and a couple of Mrs. Ashford's cast-off
gingham dresses, to be made into wrappers for Jennie. Edith and Cousin
Alice also brought some articles for Jennie's comfort.

"She will need a footstool with that chair," said Cousin Alice. "I have
an extra hassock in my room; I'll bring that."

Mrs. Howell sent an old but soft and pretty comfort to spread over the
cha