mother. "For, as I will have six dresses to make
for Peggy and two for myself, I think that will be all I can manage."

"Perhaps one of my dolls can have a dress out of it," Alice said
hopefully.

"Yes, I'll cut out a dress for Belle, and I can teach you to make that
so you can be sewing on it while I am making Peggy's frocks."

But it was some time before Peggy began to wear them, for it took her
mother a long time to make them. The very next afternoon, after the
dinner dishes were washed, Mrs. Owen got out the blue material and she
cut out a dress for Peggy, and then a small one for Belle. Alice was
learning to hem and she took as careful stitches as a grown-up person.
Peggy was divided between wanting to do what the others were doing and
hating to be tied down. She made frequent trips to the kitchen for a
drink of water and to see how Lady Jane was getting on.

"You can overcast these sleeves, Peggy," her mother said later in the
afternoon. "That is much easier than hemming."

"It's better than hemming," Peggy said, "because you can take such long
spidery stitches. But I just hate sewing. I'm never going to sew when I
grow up."

"But that is just the time you'll have to sew," said Alice.

"No, I'm going to be a writing lady."

"But they have to wear just as many frocks as other people," said Alice.

"I'll have them made for me. I'll get such a lot of money by my
writings."

"You may be married and have to make clothes for your children," said
her mother.

"I'll just have boys," said Peggy. "That would be much the best. Then I
could climb trees with them and climb over the roofs of houses, and
nobody could say, 'Peggy, you'll break your neck,' because I'd be their
mother, so everything I did would be all right."

"Oh, Peggy, you haven't been putting your mind on your work," said her
mother. "Pull out those last few stitches and do them over again, and
think what you are doing and not how you will climb trees with your
sons."

"I'll have all girls," said Alice. "Some will be dressed in pink and
some in blue."

"And some in red and some in yellow, and some in purple and some in
green," added Peggy, "and you'll be called the rainbow family. There,
mother, is that any better?"

"A little better, but you don't seem to make any two stitches quite the
same length."

Peggy suddenly flung down her work. "There's somebody at the back door,"
she said.

"It's the grocer's boy. You can go and get the things