"hers is
neat and mine isn't."

"Ah," said grandmother. "See what comes of order. Suppose you try a
little of it with that mind of yours, Molly, which you say seems always
too full. Do you know I strongly suspect that if everything in it were
very neatly arranged, you would find a very great deal of room in it; you
would be surprised to find how little, not how much, it contains."

"_Would_ I, grandmother dear?" said Molly, looking rather mystified. "I
don't quite understand."

"Think about it a little, and then I fancy you will understand," said
grandmother. "But we really must go now, or I shall be too late for what
I wanted to do. There is that collar of yours loose again, Molly. A
little brooch would be the proper thing to fasten it with. You have
several."

Poor Molly--her unlucky star was in the ascendant this afternoon surely!
She grew very red again, as she answered confusedly,

"Yes, grandmother dear."

"Well then, quick, my dear. Put on the brooch with the bit of coral in
the middle, like the one that Sylvia has on now."

"Please, grandmother dear, that one's pin's broken."

"The pin's broken! Ah, well, we'll take it to have it mended then. Where
is it, my dear? Give it to me."

Molly opened the unlucky drawer, and after a minute or two's fumbling
extracted from its depths a little brooch which she handed to
grandmother. Grandmother looked at it.

"This is not the one, Molly. This is the one Aunty sent you on your last
birthday, with the little turquoises round it."

Molly turned quickly.

"Oh yes. It isn't the coral one. It must be in the drawer."

Another rummage brought forth the coral one.

"But the turquoise one has no pin either!"

"No, grandmother dear. It broke last week."

"Then it too must go to be mended," said grandmother with decision. "See,
here is another one that will do for to-day."

She, in turn, drew forth another brooch. A little silver one this time,
in the shape of a bird flying. But as she was handing it to Molly, "Why,
this one _also_ has no pin!" she exclaimed.

"No, grandmother dear. I broke it the day before yesterday."

Grandmother laid the three brooches down in a row.

"How many brooches in all have you, Molly?" she said.

"Six, grandmother dear. They are just the same as Sylvia has. We have
each six."

"And where are the three others?"

Molly opened a little box that stood on the top of the chest of drawers.

"They're here," she said, and so they we