ly.

"And so ought he--you ought to be ashamed of yourself, calling
through the window to that Simms boy!" cried a disgusted voice.
Caroline twitched her shoulder spitefully.

"A great girl like you, too! Why, he's no better than a common
tramp, that boy," proceeded the voice. "Look at his clothes!"

"Nobody wears good clothes to go fishing," Caroline grumbled. "I
wish he had mine!"

"Fishing! He never wears them anywhere. He hasn't got them to wear.
And he'd be glad enough to get yours, I can tell you."

"He wouldn't do any such thing! He told me Saturday he'd rather be a
dog than a girl; he'd get more use of his legs!"

There was a scandalized silence. Caroline waited grimly.

"What are you doing?" said the voice at last. "Studying my
jography," she replied.

"Well, mind you do, then."

"I can't, if everybody talks to me all the time," she muttered
sullenly.

Nevertheless she resumed her rocking and crooning.

"Bounded 'n th' _east_ by Rho _Disland_; bounded 'n th' _east_ by
Rho _Disland_; bounded 'n th' _east_ by _Rho Disland_."

The housemaid appeared just under the window, dragging a small
step-ladder and a pail of glistening, soapy water. Her head was
coifed in a fresh starched towel, giving her the appearance of a
holy sister of some clean blue-and-white order; her eyes were large
and mournful. She appealed instantly to Caroline's imagination.

"Oh, Katy, what a lovely Mother Superior you would make!" she cried
enthusiastically.

"I'm a Presbyterian, Miss Car'line," said Katy reprovingly. "You'd
better go on with your lessons," and she threw up the window from
the outside.

A great puff of spring air burst into the room and turned it into a
garden. Moist turf and sprouting leaves, wet flagstones and blowing
fruit-blossoms, the heady brew of early morning in the early year
assailed Caroline's quivering nostrils and intoxicated her soul.

"Oh, Katy, don't it smell grand!" she cried.

Katy wrung the soapy cloth and attacked the upper sash.

"You've got the nose of a bloodhound," she observed. "I b'lieve
you'd smell molasses cookies half a mile."

Caroline sighed.

"I didn't mean them," she said. "I meant----"

"You'd better be at your lesson; your aunty'll be here in a minute
if she hears you talking, now!"

Katy was severe, but fundamentally friendly. Caroline groaned and
applied herself.

"Bounded 'n th' _south_ by Long Island _Sound_; bounded 'n th'
_south_ by Long Island _Sound_;