our 'shows' that we didn't have much time to get up, so we ought to have confidence in ourselves as a Club."

"With this next undertaking, though, we don't really know how the thing is done."

"How to make over the house, you mean?"

"How to make over the house and how to run the Fresh Air settlement when the house is made over."

"There's no doubt we'll know more at the end of the summer than we know now! We've got to get information from every source we can."

"The way Roger has up to now."

"We must think of every one we know who has made over a house, and Dr. Watkins ought to be able to tell us of some people who have had Fresh Air children staying with them, so we can get some idea about what they need and how a house is managed."

"Come, come." A chirp rose from near the ground. Ayleesabet was tired of being disregarded for so long.

"You blessed Lamb!" cried Ethel Blue. "Did you say, 'Come, come,' just because you heard it? Did you think we were talking very learnedly about things we didn't know much about! Never mind, ducky daddles, we'll know a lot about them six months from now!"

"Just the way we've learned a lot about babies in the last six months from this little teacher!" added Ethel Brown.

"Come, come. Home, home," remarked Elisabeth insistently.

"What's the matter? Are your leggies tired? Want the Ethels to carry you?"

Elisabeth made it known that she would like some such method of transportation, and sat joyfully on a "chair" which the two girls made by interclasping their wrists.

Not for long did this please her ladyship.

"Down, down," she demanded in a few minutes.

"We might as well go home if she's too tired to walk and too restless to ride," decided Ethel Brown, and they turned about, to the evident pleasure of the baby.

As they were returning along Church Street but were still at a distance from Dorothy's house Elisabeth suddenly gave a chirrup of delight. The Ethels looked about to see the cause of this unexpected expression of joy. Crawling out through a hedge on to the sidewalk was a child of about Elizabeth's age, but a thin and dirty little mite, with a face that betrayed her race as Irish.

"What's this morsel doing here all by herself!" exclaimed Ethel Blue.

"She must have run away; or perhaps she isn't alone. Let's look about for her mother."

Up and down the street they looked while Elisabeth scraped acquaintance with the sudden arrival upon her path.

"It doesn't seem as if she could be far off."

In truth she was not far off, for as the girls wondered and exclaimed a weak voice made itself heard from the other side of the hedge.

"Don't take her away," it said.

Leaving the children to entertain each other on the sidewalk they enlarged the hole from which the new baby had crawled, and pushed their way through it. On the ground behind the hedge, and hidden from the sidewalk by its thick twigs lay a young woman, so pale that she frightened the girls.

"Don't take the baby away. I'll feel better in a little while. She crept off from me."

"How did you get here?" asked Ethel Brown.

"I came out from New York to look for work in the country. I felt so sick I lay down here."

"Did you get any work?"

A slight movement of the head indicated that she had not. The Ethels consulted each other by disturbed glances. There was no hospital nearer than Glen Point, and indeed, the woman seemed so ill that they did not see how she could reach the hospital even in the trolley.

As they stood silent and perplexed the honk of a motor roused the almost unconscious woman.

"Is the baby in the street?" she inquired frantically.

Ethel Brown crushed her way through the hedge, and found that the children were still on the sidewalk, but were so near its edge that the driver of the car had tooted to warn them back. To her delight she saw that the driver was Grandfather Emerson. She waved her hand to stop him.

"You're a great caretaker!" he cried. "Why do you leave Elisabeth to look after herself in this fashion? And who's her friend?"

Ethel climbed into the machine beside him and told of the discovery that the girls had just made. Mr. Emerson drew the car alongside the curb and jumped out with anxiety written on his face. The hole in the hedge was too small for him to push through so he ran around the end, and approached the prostrate form of the woman.

Her eyes were closed and she lay so still that Ethel Blue, who was rubbing her hands, shook her head as she glanced up gratefully at the new arrival.

"What's this, what's this?" asked Mr. Emerson in his full, rich voice. Its mere sound seemed to carry comfort to the poor creature lying at his feet. He knelt beside her. "Hungry, eh?" he asked. "We'll see about that right off. Can you eat these cookies?" He took a thin tin box out of his pocket and opened it. "I have a little granddaughter named Ethel Brown who insists on my keeping cookies in my pocket all the time so that I can eat them when I'm driving. See if you can take a bite of this."

A fluttering hand took the cooky and put it between the pale lips.

Helped by the girls the woman struggled to her feet and stood wavering before she tried to take a step. She was a young woman with very black hair and gray-blue eyes and a face that was meant to be unlined and pretty and not gaunt with hunger and furrowed by anxiety.

"You're very good," she whispered feebly.

Supported on each side she managed to reach the sidewalk, where she looked about wildly for her baby. An expression that was sad but infinitely relieved came over her features when she saw the two children sitting in the gravel of the walk filling their tiny hands with pebbles.

"A cooky won't hurt the baby either," decided Mr. Emerson, and he gave one to each of the children.

The Ethels had no chance to ask him what he meant to do without their discovery hearing them, so they helped the woman into the machine, put in the two children and climbed in themselves. To their great interest Mr. Emerson turned the car about and headed it for his own home.

"I wonder what Grandmother will say," murmured Ethel Brown to Ethel Blue, who was steadying the ill woman's head as it lay against the back of the seat.

Ethel Blue lifted her eyebrows to indicate that she could not guess; but both girls knew in their hearts that Mrs. Emerson would do what was wisest and for the best good of the strays. She came to the door in answer to the sound of the horn.

"How did you get back so soon?" she began to inquire of her husband when her eyes fell on the passengers in the car.

"An accident?" she asked anxiously as she ran down the steps.

"The girls found this woman and her child part way over here and I thought I'd better bring her on and get your opinion about her. I think she'd like something to eat," and the kind old gentleman smiled in friendly fashion as the woman opened frightened eyes at the sound of a new voice.

Among them they succeeded in getting her into the house and into a cool room, where she lay exhausted on the bed, her hand holding tight to the little hand of her baby, lying wearily beside her.

"Sunstroke?" asked Grandmother.

"Hunger," replied Mr. Emerson, and he and Ethel Brown went down stairs at once in search of food, while Mrs. Emerson and Ethel Blue managed to undress their patient and put her into a fresh nightdress and bathe her face and hands. By the time they had done this and were undressing the baby, Ethel Brown and Mrs. Emerson's cook were at the door with jellied broth, milk, gruel and a cooling drink.

Ethel Blue fed the woman, spoonful by spoonful, and Ethel Brown gave the baby alternate spoonfuls of gruel and milk.

"Sleepy now?" asked Mrs. Emerson when the dark head sank back on the pillow. "Take a nap, then. See, the baby is right here where you can lay your hand on her. We'll look in now and then and just as soon as you wake up you must take