CAN'T be so much."

Mrs. Bancroft stared dazedly.

"TWO hundred, Ted...?" she suggested.

"Three hundred!" the boy repeated firmly, beaming sympathetically as
both the young women threw themselves upon Mrs. Bancroft, and smothered
her in ecstatic embraces.

"Oh, Aunt Nell," said Ann, almost tearfully, "I don't know what the
girls will SAY. Why, Rose, it'll all but clear the ward. It's three
times what we thought!"

"Your father will be pleased," said Mrs. Bancroft, winking a little
suspiciously. "He's worried so about you girlies assuming that debt. I
must go tell him." She began to gather her letters together. "Do you
know where he is, Ted? Has he come in from his first round?" she asked.

"She's the dearest...!" said Ann, when the door closed behind her.
"There's nobody quite like your mother."

"Honestly there isn't," assented Rosemary, thoughtfully. "When you
think how unspoiled she is--with that heavenly voice of hers, you know,
and every one so devoted to her. She doesn't do a THING, whether it's
arranging flowers, or apron patterns, or managing the maids, that
people don't admire and copy."

"She can't wait now to tell father the news," commented Theodore,
smiling.

"He'll be perfectly enchanted," said Rosemary. "He sent her violets
last night, and this morning, when we were taking all her flowers out
of the bathtub, and looking at the cards, she gave me such a funny
little grin and said, 'I'll thank the gentleman for these myself,
Rose!' Ted and I roared at her."

"But that was dear," said Ann, romantically.

"She simply does what she likes with Dad," said Ted, ruminatively.
Rosemary, facing the others over the back of her chair, nodded. Ann had
her arms about her knees. They were all idle.

"She got Dad to give me my horse," the boy went on, "and she'll get him
to let us go off to the Greers' next month--you'll see! I can't think
how she does it."

"I can remember the first day she came here," said Rosemary. She rested
her chin in her hands; her eyes were dreamy.

"George! We were the scared, miserable little rats!" supplemented
Theodore. Rosemary smiled pitifully, as if the mother asleep in her
could feel for the children of that long-passed day.

"I was only six," she said, "and when we heard the wheels we ran--"

"That's right! We ran upstairs," agreed her brother.

"Yes. And she followed us. I can remember the rustling of her dress....
And she had roses on--she pinned one on Bess's lit