fun?"

Polly's black eyes began to dance.

"You know how fond I always was of housekeeping. Let me housekeep every
second week. Give me the money and let me buy every single thing and pay
for it, and don't interfere with me whatever I do. I'll promise to be as
good as gold always, and obey you in every single thing, if only I have
this safety-valve. Let me expend myself upon the housekeeping, and I'll
be as good, better than gold. I'll help you, and be your right hand,
Nell; and I'll obey you in the most public way before all the other
girls, and as to Fly, see if I don't keep her in hand. What do you think
of this plan, Nell? I, with my safety-valve, the comfort of your life, a
sort of general to keep your forces in order."

"But you really can't housekeep, Polly. Of course I'd like to please
you, and father said himself you were to help me in the house. But to
manage everything--why, it frightens me, and I am two years older."

"But you have so very little spirit, darling. Now it doesn't frighten me
a bit, and that's why I'm so certain I shall succeed splendidly. Look
here, Nell, let me speak to father, myself; if he says 'yes,' you won't
object, will you?"

"Of course not," said Helen.

"You are a darling--I'll soon bring father round. Now, shall we go to
bed?--I am so sleepy."

The next morning at breakfast Polly electrified her brothers and sisters
by the very meek way in which she appealed to Helen on all occasions.

"Do you think, Nell, that I ought to have any more of this marmalade on
fresh bread? I ate half a pot yesterday on three or four slices of hot
bread from the oven, and felt quite a dizzy stupid feeling in my head
afterwards."

"Of course, how could you expect it to agree with you, Polly?" said
Helen, looking up innocently from her place at the tea-tray.

"Had better have a little of this stale bread-and-butter then, dear?"
proceeded Polly in a would-be anxious tone.

"Yes, if you will, dear. But you never like stale bread-and-butter."

"I'll eat it if you wish me to, Helen," answered Polly, in a very meek,
good little voice.

The two boys began to chuckle, and even Dr. Maybright looked at his
second daughter in a puzzled, abstracted way. Helen, too, colored
slightly, and wondered what Polly meant. But the young lady herself
munched her stale bread with the most immovable of faces, and even held
up the slice for Helen to scrutinize, with the gentle, good little
remark--"Have I put too m