ation and watched the fellows go off without me, and joke
about it the way you did."

Lloyd went on rattling the stick between the slats and made no answer,
but Rob's approval brightened her spirits wonderfully. It was not until
the next day, when he, too, went back to school, that she fully realized
how lonely her winter was going to be. She strolled into her mother's
room, and threw herself listlessly into a chair by the window.

"What can I do, mothah? I mustn't read long, I mustn't study, Tarbaby is
lame, so I can't ride, and I've walked as far as I care to this
mawning."

"What would you like to do?" asked Mrs. Sherman, who was dressing to go
out.

"Nothing but things that I can't do," was the fretful answer. "It would
be lots of fun if I could go out in the kitchen and beat eggs, and make
custah'd pies and biscuits and things. I'd love to cook. I haven't had
a chance since I was at Ware's Wigwam. But Aunt Cindy scolds and
grumbles if anybody so much as looks into the kitchen. She says she
won't have me messing around in her way."

"I know," sighed Mrs. Sherman. "Cindy is getting more fussy and exacting
every year. But she has cooked for the family so long that she seems to
think the kitchen is hers. If she were not such a superior cook, I
wouldn't put up with her whims, but in these days, when everybody is
having so much trouble with servants, we'll have to humour her. She's a
faithful old creature. You might cook on the chafing-dish in the
dining-room. There are all sorts of things you could make on that."

Lloyd shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "But not bread and pies and
things you do with a rolling-pin. That's the pah't I like."

She sat a moment, swinging her foot in silence, and then broke out:

"If I were a girl in a story-book, this disappointment would turn me
into such a saintly, helpful creatuah that I'd be called 'The Angel of
the Home.' I've read about such girls. They keep things in ordah, and
mend and dust and put flowahs about, and make the house so bright and
cheerful that people wondah how they evah got along without them. Every
time they turn around, there are lovely, helpful things for them to do.
But what can _I_ do in a big house like this moah than I've always tried
to do? I've tried to be considerate of everybody's comfo't evah since I
stah'ted out to build a road of the loving hah't in everybody's memory.
The servants do everything heah, and don't want to be interfered with. I