t was summer,
now--summer, and the two filled the hours with rollicking games and
gleeful shouts--and incidentally their mother's workbasket with
numerous torn pinafores and trousers.

Behind everything, above everything, and beneath everything, with
all-powerful hands and an all-wise brain, was mother. There was
father, of course; but father could not cook the meals, sweep the
rooms, sew on buttons, find lost pencils, bathe bumped foreheads, and
do countless other things. So thought Tom, Carrie, and the twins that
dreadful morning when father came dolefully downstairs and said that
mother was sick.

_Mother sick_! Tom stared blankly at the sugar bowl, Carrie fell
limply into the nearest chair, and the twins began to cry softly.

The next thirty-six hours were never forgotten by the Dudleys. The
cool nook in the woods was deserted, and Carrie spent a hot,
discouraged morning in the kitchen--sole mistress where before she had
been an all too seldom helper. At noon Mr. Dudley and Tom came home to
partake of underdone potatoes and overdone meat. The twins, repressed
and admonished into a state of hysterical nervousness, repaired
directly after dinner to the attic. Half an hour later a prolonged
wail told that Rob had cut his finger severely with an old knife; and
it was during the attendant excitement that Rose managed to fall the
entire length of the attic stairs. At night, after a supper of soggy
rolls and burnt omelet, Mr. Dudley sent an appealing telegram to
"Cousin Helen"; and the next afternoon, at five, she came.

Miss Helen Mortimer was pretty, sweet-tempered, and twenty-five. The
entire family fell captive to her first smile. There was a world of
comfort and relief in her very presence, and in the way she said
cheerily:

"We shall do very well, I am sure. Carrie can attend to her mother,
and I will take the helm downstairs."

The doctor said that rest and quiet was what Mrs. Dudley most needed,
so Carrie's task would be comparatively light; and with a stout woman
to come twice a week for the heavy work downstairs, the household gave
promise of being once more on a livable basis.

It was at breakfast the next morning that the first cloud appeared on
Miss Mortimer's horizon. It came in the shape of the crisply fried
potatoes she was serving. The four children were eating late after
their father had left.

"Oh, Cousin Helen," began Tom, in an annoyed manner, "I forgot to tell
you; I don't like