kitten and rabbits? Are you afraid that they may be jealous of the babies?"

"No, Aunt Mary; but they will grow bigger and bigger and be too large for the babies to hold; or maybe they might die just as my little black kitten did. Liza said I killed it with kindness; but I can't see how that could be."

"If anything happens to your pets, Uncle will find some new ones for you, never fear. I would not be at all surprised to hear that he had made you a present of a little white elephant. Now, I am sure that you will enjoy telling the Sisters whom you know best all about those dear little sisters——"

"Why, you don't mean to say that you haven't told them yet, Aunt Mary!"

"Not a word. I thought you would like to surprise them. But if you had not come out to see us this afternoon, I must confess that I could not have kept the secret over night."

Presently Sister Austin, Sister Dominic, and several others whom Mary knew very well came in to see her, and heard all about Berta and Beth. Then, while Sister Madeline had a little visit with Liza, Sister Austin went with Mary to the garden. The little girl's love of flowers made her a great favorite with Mr. Daniel, as she insisted on calling the gardener; and the old man always stopped his work to give her a ride around the garden in his wheelbarrow, which he first lined with a clean newspaper. But to-day, Mary felt that she could not delay long enough for her ride, and carefully explained to Dan the reason why she must hurry home.

"Aunt Mandy promised to let me sing them to sleep to-night; and I must sing all the songs first to Mother, so she can tell me which one will be best. I like Sleep Little Baby of Mine and Sweet and Low; but my little sisters may prefer something else, and Mother will surely know."

So she waited only long enough for Dan to cut the flowers which he insisted on sending to Mrs. Selwyn. As the beautiful roses fell beneath his shears, Mary caught up a tiny red rosebud.

"This will be for Berta; and do you think, Mr. Daniel, that you have a little blue flower for Beth? Oh, I know just the thing! A white rosebud!"

On the way back to the playground for a promised romp with the girls, she spied some chickens, hatched only a few days before.

"Baby things are so dear—baby flowers, baby chickens, baby everything; but baby sisters are the dearest of all, Sister."

CHAPTER IV.

MARY'S PLAN.

During the following weeks, Mary was a very, very busy little girl. She had a wash day on the back porch when the suds flew in every direction, and Snowball fled upstairs to escape a bath not meant for her. The ironing was not so easy; but with help from the laundress on tucks and lace-trimmed ruffles, it was at last finished. The dolls themselves had their smiling faces well scrubbed with the nail brush, and their curls combed and brushed, after which they were dressed in their Sunday best and carefully laid in the big oak box which had been made for this purpose.

Next, Mary put her games in order and piled the boxes on the lowest shelf of her own little bookcase in her playroom; and then she sorted her books, putting all those which had only pictures and no reading matter in them on the shelf above the games; the A, B, C books and nursery rhymes on the one above that; and the story books, which she thought the twins would not use for some time, on the top shelf.

She did not finish her task until the Saturday before school opened, for there were many other things to be done every day. She could not neglect her pets nor her own little flower garden which she herself had dug and raked and hoed and planted with seeds, bulbs, and slips which Dan had given her. Every day, she chose the fairest blossoms to place before her mother's beautiful statue of our Blessed Lady.

But by far the greater part of her time was spent with her mother and little sisters. Each morning found her laying out the fresh clothing needed for the twins after their bath. Then she made ready their little beds, and Aunt Mandy always let her hold first one baby and then the other for a few minutes before tucking them in for their nap. It seemed to Mary a very strange hour to go to sleep. She thought every one ought to be quite wide awake by that time of the morning; but she had learned on the first day of her little sisters' lives that there is a great difference between babies and big girls of seven, just as there is between seven-year-olds and grown-ups.

The first of September came all too quickly. The thought of leaving the darling babies for five hours which she must spend at school every day made her wish that her mother would teach her at home as she had done the winter before. Not that Mary disliked school. The few months in the spring, which she had spent at a convent day school, had been such happy ones that she had been really sorry when school closed, and, until the babies came, had longed for September so that she might again sit at her little desk with Sister Florian smiling down at her and ever so many classmates with whom to romp at recess.

But now things were very different; and as she lay in her little brass bed the night before school opened, she wondered how her mother and Aunt Mandy could very well spare her during those long hours at the academy. Only that day, her mother had made her very happy by saying that she did not know what they would do without her. Since that was the case, Mary felt quite sure that it would be much better to have lessons with her mother.

She had done so well the winter before that, when she began to attend school, she was put in a class which had finished the First Reader before Easter and was just beginning the Second. During the summer, she had read all the lessons in that book, going to her mother for help with words that she could not quite make out. She had a habit of reading aloud even when alone, so that Mrs. Selwyn, passing from room to room, was often able to correct words which the child did not pronounce properly. The little girl laughed softly at the memory of one of her mistakes. She was reading a story of a little queen of England, and was calling one man in it the "Duck of Cucumbers." Her mother entered the room just in time to hear the dreadful mistake; and Mary soon saw that her duck was a duke—the Duke of Cumberland. From that time, she was more careful, for she knew that she would not like her father to be called a duck if he were a duke.

Yes, she was quite sure that she could do just as well, or even better, with her lessons at home if—and this was the important point—her mother had time to teach her. This thought had kept her from talking the matter over with her mother as she was in the habit of doing. She knew that the care of two babies takes a great deal of time and that her mother needed rest, too, when they were asleep. But what of her father and uncle? They could help her in the evenings. The Doctor often asked her to read to him after dinner, and why could she not read the lessons in the Third Reader?—for Mary had quite made up her mind that the Second Reader was much too easy for a school book. Sometimes, too, he teased her about the "tootums table." Yes, her uncle would surely help her with reading and number work, and her father with Catechism and spelling. She would slip down stairs to ask them before she went to sleep, and then surprise her mother with the plan in the morning.

Waiting only long enough to put on her pretty blue kimono and slippers, she crept from her room and down the stairs to the library, where the two men sat smoking.

"Why, pet, what is the matter? are you ill?" her father asked anxiously as he took her on his knee.

"Oh, no, Father! It would never do for me to get sick now when Mother and Aunt Mandy are so busy with the babies. Something popped into my head a little while ago, and I couldn't go to sleep until I had asked you about it."

"It would not keep