forget to wear your pinafores in the morning.

'Your loving MOTHER.'

Molly wrote a nice little letter to her mother. To her brother she said:

DEAR BERTIE,

I think you are beasts to have let me in for this. You might have
thought of me. I shall not forgive you till the sun is just going
down, and I would not then, only it is so wrong not to. I wish
_you_ had been named Maria, and had to stay here instead of me.

'Your broken-hearted sister,

'MOLLY CARRUTHERS.'

When Molly stayed at the White House she was accustomed to read aloud in
the mornings from 'Ministering Children' or 'Little Pilgrims,' while
Aunt Maria sewed severely. But that morning Aunt Maria did not send for
her.

'Your aunt's not well,' Clements told her; 'she won't be down before
lunch. Run along, do, miss, and walk in the garden like a young lady.'

Molly chose rather to swagger out into the stableyard like a young
gentleman. The groom was saddling the sorrel horse.

'I've got to take a telegram to the station,' said he.

'Take me,' said Molly.

'Likely! And what ud your aunt say?'

'She won't know,' said Molly, 'and if she does I'll say I made you.'

He laughed, and Molly had a splendid ride behind the groom, with her
arms so tight round his waistcoat that he could hardly breathe.

When they got to the station a porter lifted her down, and the groom let
her send off the telegram. It was to Uncle Toodlethwaite, and it said:

'Please come down at once urgent business most important don't fail
bring Bates.--MARIA CARRUTHERS.'

So Molly knew something very out of the way had happened, and she was
glad that her aunt should have something to think of besides her,
because the White House would have been a very nice place to stay at if
Aunt Maria had not so often remembered to do her duty by you.

[Illustration: 'Molly had a splendid ride behind the groom.'--Page 134]

In the afternoon Uncle Toodlethwaite came, and he and Aunt Maria and a
person in black with a shining black bag--Molly supposed he was Mr.
Bates, who was to be brought by Uncle Toodlethwaite--sat in the
dining-room with the door shut.

Molly went to help the kitchenmaid shell peas, in the little grass
courtyard in the middle of the house. They sat on the kitchen steps, and
Molly could hear the voices of Clements and the housekeeper through the
open window of the servants' hall. She heard, but she did not think it