so that I spilled some. 'Liza just
snatched the bottle away, very unpolitely, when I only told her that I
had been helping her because she was so busy, and Zaidee wanted her legs
rubbed. 'It's Kemp's Balsam,' she said, 'and I'm giving it to Helen for
her cough, and it's not Pond's Extract, at all.' But it _was_ a Pond's
Extract bottle, auntie, truly, so how should I know? And then she said,
'it was a mercy I wasn't twins,'" finished Cricket, looking much
aggrieved.

Auntie laughed till the tears came into her eyes.

"Kemp's Balsam, of all sticky things!" she said. "Poor Zaidee! did she
have to be scraped?"

"'Liza said she guessed she would have to scrape her," admitted Cricket,
reluctantly. "And the things on the bed, and her nightdress, had to be
changed. I kept thinking it was pretty funny looking stuff for Pond's
Extract, but I thought perhaps it was rancid."

"Rancid Pond's Extract! Oh, what a girl!" laughed grandma, but patting
her head, consolingly, "Our little Jean is very nice, but I think I'm
glad, myself, you're not twins."

"There'd be two of us to fall through ceilings, then," meditated
Cricket, "for I suppose if I was twins we'd be always together like
Zaidee and Helen. No, I'm glad there is only one of me. It's more
convenient. I don't want to count any more, now, Billy, but would you
mind keeping your hair that way for a day or two, so I could count
whenever I like?"

And if auntie had not interposed in his behalf, I do not know but Billy
might still be walking the streets of Marbury with his crested
decoration.

CHAPTER XIII.

A WRESTLING MATCH.

"That's it! Prime! Now, again!" shouted Will, encouragingly, and
Cricket, in her blue gymnasium suit, panting and laughing, put her
shoulder to Archie's again, and stood in position. Will was giving her a
lesson in wrestling, at her particular request, and she was proving an
apt pupil, for the slender, elastic little figure and supple muscles
made up for any lack of strength.

"Good, good!" repeated Will, as Cricket, swaying and tugging, and
bending backward almost double, came up like a steel wire. "Bravo! we'll
soon have you champion lady wrestler in a dime museum. At him again!
good enough! hurray!" for Cricket, slipping through Archie's grasp like
a knotless thread, took him suddenly unawares, and fairly and squarely
tripped him up.

"By jove!" ejaculated Archie, still on his back, too much surprised to
get up.

"Well done, Miss S