" said Kittie disconsolately. "We're not going to get
anything; it'll be awful poky."

"But mama'll be home for ten days; oh, bliss!" cried Kat, waving her
teaspoon, and every cloudy face brightened. "Can't we give her
something, girls?"

"I don't see how," said Ernestine. "It takes every cent we all earn to
keep things going. Who ever thought we'd be so poor? Just think of last
Christmas, how glorious!"

Everybody remembered, and faces saddened again. How gay the house had
been in evergreens! how mysterious the locked parlors, where all knew, a
tree stood, branching up to the ceiling; how blissfully happy everybody
had been during the two weeks when the world becomes one in spirit and
truth, and the god of good-will wields the sceptre and wears the crown!
Father had been with them, dear, unselfish, great-hearted papa, whose
every exertion had been to make them all happy and whose dearest hope
and prayer had been that his girls might be noble, splendid women, with
pure, true hearts and the spirit of God therein.

"Olive, will you bring some butter when you come home? This is the last
drop," said Kittie, scraping the dish, and collecting the silver, after
the meal was finished, as it was very soon, for breakfasts were hurried
now-a-days.

"Yes; two pounds? That's the third time this month; our bill will be
pretty big. If I'm very busy I will not be home to dinner."

"Sha'n't I fix some lunch for you?"

"I haven't time to wait. Where's my rubbers?"

"I don't know. Kat, did you have Olive's rubbers last night?"

"Yes, and I don't know any more than Adam where I put them. Look in the
closet, Olive, and I'll run up stairs and see," answered Kat, departing
in haste.

"Well, I wish you would let my things alone," said Olive testily,
throwing down her mittens and veil, and diving into the closet; the
general closet, as it was called, where everything, from the kitchen
stove-hook to the girls best Sunday-go-to-meeting bonnets, were apt to
find a lodging at odd times. "I never can be on time," she muttered,
slamming things around and comparing various odd rubbers. "This closet
looks like a demented bedlam. I'd be ashamed, that's what I would."

"I can't do everything," answered Bea in a hurry, feeling that the
thrust was meant for her. "Because I'm housekeeper, it doesn't rest on
me to keep everything in perfect order, when you all help to muss up."

"It's like distraction without mama, anyhow," declared Kittie, dep