you. Why don't you make
your mother a white kimona, and bind it with pink ribbon? White was
always her favorite."

So it was decided the kimona should be white eiderdown and bound
with pink satin ribbon and Rosemary and Sarah and Shirley went
shopping one afternoon after school and bought the materials. Their
purchase included a pattern, the first in their joint experience and
when they had spread it out on Rosemary's bed the three girls looked
at it helplessly.

"We'll put it on paper, till we learn how to cut it," said Rosemary,
secretly wondering how anyone ever learned to understand such
complicated directions as were printed on the pattern envelope.

They had decided that neither Aunt Trudy nor Winnie could be allowed
to help them and since Rosemary had a working knowledge of the
sewing machine's mysteries and could sew neatly by hand, they had
not anticipated any trouble.

"But how could we know a pattern was such a silly thing?" wailed
Rosemary, tired and cross when the dinner gong sounded and they had
made no progress. The floor of the room was littered with paper and
the top of the bed resembled a pincushion for Shirley had amused
herself by sticking the contents of the entire paper of pins in
orderly rows on the counterpane.

"Aren't you coming down to dinner?" asked Sarah, moving toward the
door.

"No, I'm not," retorted Rosemary. "I'm not hungry and I don't want
anything to eat. Don't let Winnie come up here making a fuss; you
tell Aunt Trudy I don't want any dinner to-night. I'm not going to
do a thing till I get this kimona cut out."

"Hugh will be mad," said Sarah, half way down the hall.

"Let him," called Rosemary recklessly, shutting the door of her room
with a bang.

She was deep in the pattern directions for the tenth time, when
someone rapped on her door.

"I'm not hungry--don't bother me," she called, frowning.

The door knob turned and Doctor Hugh smiled in at her.

"Heard you were having trouble with the dressmaking," he announced.
"Can't I help? I'm not Winnie or Aunt Trudy, you know. I'd like to
have a finger in this, if I could."

Rosemary drew a long breath.

"You do understand, don't you?" she said, standing on the foot that
had not gone to sleep and trying to rouse the circulation in the
other one. "We didn't want anyone to touch our present for Mother,
except us; but you're us, too, aren't you?"

"Surest thing," agreed the doctor, approaching the terrible pattern
wit