rist-watch, "it's nine o'clock. That
isn't bad. Now we'll work till twelve; that's long enough for to-day,
because you got too tired yesterday; and, besides, we've got some
other things to attend to. Then we'll hustle into the car, and get to
town, and do some shopping ready for our trip. That will rest you.
We'll get lunch at a tea-room, and shop all the afternoon. We'll go to
a hotel for dinner, and stay all night. Then in the morning we can get
up early, have our breakfast, and drive back here in time before the
men come. Now isn't that perfectly spick-and-span for a plan?"

"Leslie! But, dear, that would cost a lot! And, besides, it isn't in
the least necessary."

"Cost has nothing to do with it. Look!" and Leslie flourished a
handful of bills. "See what Guardy Lud gave me! And Allison has
another just like it. He said particularly that we were not to let you
get all worked out and get sick so you couldn't go with us, and he
particularly told us about a lot of things he wanted us to buy to make
things easy on the way. After he leaves us and goes back to California
we're in your charge, I know; but just now you're in ours, you dear,
unselfish darling; and we're going to run you. Oh, we're going to run
you to beat the band!" laughed Leslie, and jumped down from her perch
to hug and squeeze the breath out of Julia Cloud.

"But child! Dear!" said that good woman when she could get her breath
to speak. "You mustn't begin in that extravagant way!"

But they put their hands over her lips, and laughed away her protests
until she had to give up for laughing with them.

"Well, then," she said at last, when they had subsided from a regular
rough-house frolic for all the world as if they were children, "we'll
have to get to work in good earnest; only it doesn't seem right to let
you work so hard when you are visiting me."

"Visiting, nothing!" declared Allison; "we're having the time of our
lives. I haven't been in a place where I could do as I pleased since I
was eight years old. This is real work, and I like it. Come now, don't
let's waste any time. What can I do first? Wouldn't you like to have
me take down all the pictures on the second floor, stack them in the
attic, and sweep down the walls the way we did down here yesterday?"

"Yes," said their aunt with an affectionate homage in her eyes for
this dear, capable boy who was so eager over everything as if it were
his own.

"And those big bookcases. What are you go