ess. Joe won't refuse," Barry said, with his
lazy smile.

"Oh, you're an angel! I'm going shopping this instant. Barry, there
will be room now for my Ellen, and Billy, and Dicky Carew, won't there?
It seems their hearts are bursting with the desire. Bunting," murmured
Sidney, beginning a list, "cheese-cloth, pink, blue, and cream, bolts
of it; twine, beads, leather, feathers; some big white hats; ice-cream,
extra milk--"

"Hold on! What for?"

"Why, they have to have something to eat afterward," she reproached
him. "We're going to have a picnic up at the Hall. Then those that can
will join their people for the fireworks, and the others will be taken
home to Old Paloma. The little Scott girl will stay with Ellen and Jo
overnight; Mammy Currey will look after them, and they'll watch the
fireworks from my porch. I've written to ask Doctor Young--he's the
best in San Francisco--to come up from the city next day to see what he
thinks can be done for Mary Scott."

"You get a lot of fun out of your money, don't you, Sidney?" said
Barry, watching her amusedly, as she tucked the list into her purse and
arose with a great air of business.

"More than any one woman deserves," she answered soberly.

"Walter," said Anne Pratt to her brother, one evening about this time,
as she decorously filled his plate from the silver tureen, "have you
heard that Mrs. Burgoyne has gathered up about twenty children in Old
Paloma--cripples, and orphans, and I don't know what all!--and is
getting up a wagon for the Flower Festival? I was up at the Hall
to-day, and they're working like beavers."

"Carew said something about it," said Walter Pratt. "Seems a good idea.
Those poor little kids over there don't have much fun."

"You never said so before, Walter," his sister returned almost
resentfully.

"I don't know why I shouldn't have," said Walter literally. "It's true."

"If we did anything for any children, it ought to be Lizzie's," said
Miss Pratt uncomfortably, after a pause.

"I wish to the Lord we COULD do something for Lizzie's kids," her
brother observed suddenly. "I suppose it would kill you to have 'em up
here?"

"Kill me!" Miss Anne echoed with painful eagerness, and with a sudden
tremble of her thin, long hand. "I don't know why it should; there
never were better behaved children born. I don't like Lizzie's husband,
and never shall;" she rushed on, "but seeing those children up at the
Hall to-day made me think of Betty, and