ulu.

"I'll tell you," put in May. "We'll play they are three stiff old
ladies, who always wear best clothes, you know, and sit so in chairs;
and that Nippy and Maria are coming to make them a visit. They needn't
really come, you know. Mrs. Eugenie, sit up straight. Now listen to the
hateful old thing! She's talking to Victoria."

"Sister, when are those children coming?"

"I don't know, sister," squeaked back Lulu in the character of Victoria.
"I wish they wouldn't come at all. Children are the bane of my
existence."

"You horrid doll, talking that way about _my_ baby," cried Bertha,
giving Victoria a shove.

"Don't, Beppie; you'll push her down," said May. Then changing her voice
again, "Your manners is most awful, I'm sure," she squeaked, in the
person of the irate Victoria.

All the children giggled, and Mrs. Frisbie looked up from her book.

At this moment in ran the two boys, hot, dusty, and excited,--Arthur
with a handful of "fractional currency," and Jack waving a two-dollar
bill.

"See!" they cried. "Four dollars and sixty-five cents. Isn't that
splendid? Mr. Ashurst bought all the Croppys, and gave twenty-five cents
a piece for them."

"Let us see, let us see!" cried the little girls, precipitating
themselves on the money.

"Look here, now, Mary Frisbie--no snatching!" protested Jack,--"I
haven't told you the best yet. Mr. Ashurst says we're such good farmers,
that he'll give us work whenever we like to take it. He says I could
earn three dollars a week _now_! Think of that."

"Oh, how much!" cried Lulu, awe-struck. "What could you do with so much,
Jacky?"

"Now boys,--listen to me," said their mother. "Go upstairs right away
and get ready for tea. You look like real farmers' boys at this moment,
I declare, so hot and dusty. I don't wonder Mr. Ashurst offered you
work,--though I think it was very impertinent of him to do so. I hope
you said that your father's sons didn't need to earn money in any such
way."

"Why, Mamma, of course I didn't. Arthur and me like to work, and we are
going to somehow just as soon as we're big enough. It's lots better fun
than going to school. Besides, Papa says we may. He told us all American
boys ought to work, whether their fathers are rich or poor."

"Papa likes to talk nonsense with you," said Mrs. Frisbie, biting her
lips. "Go up now and dress."

There was a howl from both boys.

"O Mamma! not yet. It's too early for that horrid dressing, oh, a great
dea