thing to do--an
"assisting Providence"--such as wise Aunt Betty wholly disapproved; but
that time it had been a fortunate one for all concerned.

Now as the girl sipped her cocoa, turning the egg-shell like cup to
catch the light, she wondered what she could still do to help her dear
Gray Lady and to prove her own love. Then her dreaming was cut short by
a hubbub of merry voices without, and, a moment later, a crowd of young
folks tumbled through the big window, laughing, teasing, exhorting:

"Lazy girl! Just eating breakfast and it's nearly time for lunch, seems
if!"

"Oh! The loveliest thing in the world!" cried Molly, clapping her hands.

"Thank you," said Dolly, demurely, lifting her face for the other to
kiss.

"Oh! not you, Miss Vanity, but a beautiful thing on four legs!"

"We're to take our choice and the white one's _mine_, for--" declared
Alfaretta.

"No white one for me! Dad says we're to do our own grooming and white
ones have to be washed just like a poodle dog and--" began Leslie.

"I had one once. His name was 'Goodenough,' and he was good enough, too.
Could walk on its hind legs--" interrupted Herbert.

"Oh, Dorothy! If you aren't going to finish that buttered toast, do give
it to me! I never was so hungry in all my life. I simply can't get
filled up, and--"

"Montmorency Vavasour-Stark! You ought to be ashamed! After eating four
chops, three boiled eggs, five helpings of potato, to say nothing of
coffee enough for the regiment, and strawberries--"

"Well, Mistress Molly Breckenridge, I don't know who set you to keep
tally on my appetite! and I hate to see good things wasted. Want the
rest of those berries, girlie? I know you don't. You're real unselfish,
you are; and you wouldn't eat all the nice-ripe-red-strawberries-
raised-under-glass-ripe-red-strawberries and give your neighbor none.
And give your neighbor none, you-shan't-have-any-of-my-nice-ripe-red-
strawberries-who-gives-his-neighbor--Molly, give it back! Aw, now,
Molly! You wouldn't eat all the nice-ripe--Hold on! Bert Montaigne,
that's a beastly shame! After I had to warble in that dulcet way for
a plate of poor, left-over, second-hand strawberries, to have 'em
grabbed by you and Molly--that's too much. Just one drop too much to
fill my bucket, but I say, 'Little One,' I wish you'd get up late
every morning, and have just such a superfine breakfast as this saved
for you, and not be hungry at all yourself, but save it for a poor
s