NELLIE'S
HOUSEKEEPING.

CONTENTS.

I.
HARD AT WORK.

"No!" with as much shortness and sharpness as the little word of two letters could well convey.

"Why not?"

"Oh! because I can't. Don't bother me."

And, laying down the pencil with which she had been writing, Nellie Ransom pushed back the hair from her flushed, heated face, drew a long, weary sigh, took up the Bible which lay at her elbow, and, turning over the leaf, ran her finger slowly and carefully down the page before her.

Carrie stood with one elbow upon the corner of the table at which her sister sat, her chin resting in her palm as she discontentedly watched Nellie, while with the other hand she swung back and forth by one string the broad straw hat she was accustomed to wear when playing out of doors.

"I think you might," she said presently. "Mamma says I can't go if you don't, and I want to go so."

"I can't help it," said Nellie, still without taking her eyes from her Bible. "I wish you'd stop shaking the table so."

"How soon will you come?" persisted Carrie, taking her elbow from the table.

"When I'm ready, and not before," snapped Nellie. "I wish you'd let me alone."

Carrie began to cry.

"It's too bad," she whimpered. "Mamma says, if I go at all, I must go early, so as to be back before sundown, 'cause my cold is so bad. There won't be any time for me to play."

Nellie made no answer, but, having found what she wanted in her Bible, began to write again, copying from the page of the Holy Book before her.

Presently Carrie, forgetting her caution, tossed down her hat, and pettishly plumped both elbows upon the table, muttering,—

"I think you're real mean."

"Stop shaking the table, or I won't go at all," said Nellie, in a loud, irritable tone. "Ask mamma to let Ruth take you."

"She can't spare Ruth, she says. The baby is fretful, and she don't feel well enough to take care of it herself; and I think you might go with me. I haven't been to the beach for four days, because I was sick," pleaded Carrie, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Well, I'm too busy to go now. You'll have to wait until I'm ready," said Nellie. "I'll come by and by."

"By and by will leave hardly any time," said Carrie, with a wistful glance out upon the lawn, where the shadows were already growing long.

No answer; only the rustle of Nellie's sheet of paper as she