d I didn't know it," said mamma, kissing her.

"I didn't tell anybody--much," returned Flaxie. "I thought 'twasn't
polite. And then auntie bought me some red worsteds, and I made some
mittens for a sick girl named Lucy, that can't wipe her mouth, or go to
school, or talk; and it made me just as happy!"

"That was right. Of course it made you happy to forget yourself and help
somebody else."

"Yes'm, I know _all about_ that!" replied Flaxie, with a wise look. She
had learned a deep lesson from those mittens.

"But I don't ever want to go away again," said she, dropping a tear on
the pillow, "for there isn't any _you_ and Dr. Papa anywhere else."

"Oh, some time you'll want to."

"No, mamma. When I said I'd go there to school with Milly I didn't know
about my baby sister. I ought to stay and take care of her, and never go
away any more as long as I live,--not till I die, and go to heaven."

But three months passed, and Flaxie had forgotten all this. She was
always fond of the baby, whose name was Ethel Gray; but sometimes she
thought Ethel needn't cry quite so much, and ought to cut a tooth, and
ought to have more hair.

* * * * *

The world looked dark to Flaxie, for she was sick that spring, and a
long while getting well. It was a queer sort of illness too. First it
made her look yellow and then pea-green, and Julia had to sing and smile
a great deal in order to keep her at all comfortable.

"After dandelions, buttercups,
After buttercups, clover;
One blossom follows another one,
Over and over and over!"

sang Julia one evening, when Flaxie was making ready to take her
medicine.

"Now, Flaxie dear, swallow it like a lady."

"Yes. Dr. Papa knows a great deal, and I shall do just as he says,"
replied the little girl, grasping her cup of rhubarb tightly in one
hand, and a glass of cold water in the other.

It was a comfort to see her take her medicine for once without crying,
and Preston shouted "Hurrah!"

She was pea-green at this time, and oh, so cross! For supper she had had
three slices of bread and butter, and cried because she couldn't have
the fourth.

"If the poor little thing wasn't so cross we'd send her to Aunt
Charlotte's for a change," said Dr. Papa in a low voice to his wife; but
Flaxie heard it.

"Oh, mamma, do lemme go to Aunt Charlotte's, and go to school with
Milly; she has such a dear teacher! And Milly's my twin cousin,