fun, won't it, Polly?"

"What is a greenhouse?" asked the child, wonderingly. "All green,
Jasper?"

"Oh, dear me," said Van, doubling up, "do you suppose she thinks it's
painted green?"

"It's green inside, Phronsie, dear," said Jasper, kindly, "and that's
the best of all."

When Phronsie was really let loose in the greenhouse she thought it
decidedly best of all; and she went into nearly as much of a rapture as
Polly did on her first visit to it.

In a few moments she was cooing and jumping among the plants, while old
Turner, staid and particular as he was, laughed to see her go.

"She's your sister, Miss Mary, ain't she?" at last he asked, as Phronsie
bent lovingly over a little pot of heath, and just touched one little
leaf carefully with her finger.

"Yes," said Polly, "but she don't look like me."

"She is like you," said Turner, respectfully, "if she don't look like
you; and the flowers know it, too," he added, "and they'll love to see
her coming, just as they do you."

For Polly had won the old gardener's heart completely by her passionate
love for flowers, and nearly every morning a little nosegay, fresh and
beautiful, came up to the house for "Miss Mary."

And now nobody liked to think of the time, or to look back to it, when
Phronsie hadn't been in the house. When the little feet went pattering
through halls and over stairs, it seemed to bring sunshine and happiness
into every one's heart just to hear the sounds. Polly and the boys in
the schoolroom would look up from their books and nod away brightly to
each other, and then fall to faster than ever on their lessons, to get
through the quicker to be with her again.

One thing Phronsie always insisted on, and kept to it
pertinaciously--and that was to go into the drawing-room with Polly
when she went to practice, and there, with one of her numerous family of
dolls, to sit down quietly in some corner and wait till she got through.

Day after day she did it, until Polly, who was worried to think how
tedious it must be for her, would look around and say, "Oh, childie, do
run out and play."

"I want to stay," Phronsie would beg in an injured tone; "please let me,
Polly."

So Polly would jump and give her a kiss, and then, delighted to know
that she was there, would go at her practicing with twice the vigor and
enthusiasm.

But Phronsie's chief occupation, at least when she wasn't with Polly,
was the entertainment and amusement of Mr. King. And n