s very tuggy this morning 97

He was not a very amusing person 107

We made holes at the crusty side of the slices, and tied them
with string 135

"Has any one attended to you, my dear?" 169

We thanked him, and ran off 172

"Can't you trust me, Audrey?" 193

In walked Miss Goldy-hair herself! 209

Read to him over and over again all the stories I could find 215

Two muffins would be exquisite 227

"Wait for the first moonlight night and you will see," said
the dove, and then it flew off 243

Racey was really rather frightened of him, he looked so black
and queer 259

[Illustration: The Boys and I]

CHAPTER I.

OUR FIRST SORROW.

"O, it is trouble very bad,
Which causes us to weep;
All last night long we were so sad,
Not one of us could sleep."

Sometimes they called us all three just "the boys." But I don't think
that was fair. I may have been rather a _tom_boy, but I wasn't quite so
bad as to be called a "boy." I was nine then-- I mean I was nine at the
beginning of the time I am going to tell you about, and now I am
fourteen. Afterwards, I will tell you what put it into my head to write
it down. If I told you now you wouldn't understand--at least not without
my telling you things all out of their places--ends at the beginning,
and middles at the end; and mother says it's an awfully bad habit to do
things that way. It makes her quite vexed to see any one read the end of
a book before they have really got to it. There aren't many things that
make her really vexed, but that's one, and another is saying "awfully,"
and I've just said it, or at least written it. And I can't score it
through--I've promised not to score through anything, and just to leave
it as it came into my head to write it all down.

I was nine that year, and Tom was seven, and little Racey six. I
remember it quite well, for that year a lot of things happened. Tom and
I had the measles, and how it was Racey didn't have them too I don't
know, but he didn't. And just when we were getting better, the first
very bi