little girls
all slept in one large room, and as soon as they had gone to be prepared
for bed, under the superintendence of Mary, Henrietta proposed that
herself and six other young ladies should volunteer to assist in
undressing them. "You know," said she, "there are eight of the children,
and if we each take a child and leave one to Mary, they can be got to
bed in an eighth part of the time that it will require for Mary to
attend to all of them herself. Just, you know, as they have quilting
frolics and husking frolics in the country, when a whole week's work is
accomplished in a few hours, by assembling a great many persons to join
in it."

This proposal was immediately assented to; and a committee of half a
dozen young ladies, with Henrietta at their head, adjourned to the
children's apartment. "Come, little chits," said Henrietta, "as it is a
cold night, we are going to have an undressing frolic, and to help Mary
to put you all to bed: for the sooner you are tucked up in your nests
the better it will be for you,--and for us too," she added in a low
voice aside to Miss Thomson. "Here, Rosalie Sunbridge," she continued,
"come to me, I will do the honours for _you_, as you are a sort of pet
of mine."

The elder girls then began undressing the little ones with such violence
that strings snapped, buttons were jerked off, and stockings torn in the
process. The children wondered why the young ladies were seized with
such a sudden and unusual fit of kindness, and why they went so
energetically to work in getting them undressed and put to bed.

An altercation, however, ensued between Henrietta Harwood and Rosalie
Sunbridge, who declared that it was her mother's particular desire that
her hair behind should be curled in papers every night; a ceremony that
Henrietta proposed omitting, telling her that there was already
sufficient curl remaining in her hair to last all the next day, and
reminding her that there was no such trouble with the hair of the other
little girls. "That is because they have no hair to curl," replied
Rosalie; "you know that they are all closely cropped. But if you will
not roll up mine in papers, Miss Harwood, I would rather have Mary to
put me to bed, though you _do_ call me your pet." "Well, well, hush, and
I _will_ do it," said Henrietta; "but it shall be done in a new way
which saves a great deal of trouble, and makes very handsome curls when
the hair is opened out next morning." So saying, she sna