themselves—and "the little busy B's bee," as the name was now abbreviated, ended with the girls nestled together on the steps, while the boys disposed of their length of limb lower down, and they sang again while the little July moon dipped down before them, and disappeared in the west, and the stars came out.

Then Frances arose to go, and the Rutherford boys arose, too, to take her safely home, and then go their own ways.

"We're no end grateful to you for giving us the very nicest party we ever went to," said Basil to Mrs. Grey as he bade her good-night.

"Oh, as to that," Rob remarked, "one good cut deserves another."

"Come as often as you like, my dears; we shall love to have you," said Mrs. Grey, who, on this second, longer seeing, had taken the Rutherfords quite into her motherly heart.

"Did you have a good time, children?" she asked as the girls kissed her good-night, Oswyth last of all, as she always contrived to be.

"Beautiful, Mardy," said Wythie. "I really think, as Basil said, it was as nice a party as I ever went to."

"And I think they are glorious boys," said Prue. "I'm so glad we've found such nice new friends."

"So am I; it's as fortunate for the three lassies as it is for the three lads," said Mrs. Grey.

"And I am glad the grass is cut, you unpractical little girls, Mardy, Wythie, and Prudy, all three of you," said Rob, looking out with much satisfaction on the smooth lawn as she pulled down the shade and lighted her bedtime candle.

CHAPTER THREE
ITS MASTER

The morning after the bee Oswyth was washing dishes and Prue was wiping them, while Roberta polished the stove, whistling in cheerful oblivion of the large polka-dot of blacking adorning her cheek.

Mrs. Grey came in from the dining-room, which she had been brushing up, her dust-pan in one hand, her whisk-broom in the other, held straight out like parentheses, and said, without preliminary, out of her busy thoughts: "I don't see, dear girls, what we shall do this fall unless we have an extra hundred dollars. And still less do I see where we are to get even an extra five dollars. I have been lying awake nights contriving, but no suggestion comes. The coal money went to repair the roof, and bought the flour and other things—all necessities—but it must be made up, and I cannot see how. Besides, you need, each of you, warm coats this winter. I suppose Prue can wear Wythie's old one, but Wythie and Rob must have something."

Prue made a wry face, but Rob cried: "Sufficient to the season is the coating thereof, Mardy. Winter coats don't appeal to me strongly this sultry morning."

"Don't worry, Mardy; I am sure we can manage," said Wythie, lovingly. "But coal—well, I don't see how that can be dodged."

"No, nor paid for," sighed her mother. "Ah, well! We have lived for a good many years, and through several crises which in prospective looked impenetrable, so I suppose we shall find a way."

"Like Sentimental Tommy," added Rob. "I'm sure of it."

"Perhaps papa will get into business by that time," suggested Prue.

"And throw up the invention?" cried Rob, quickly. "That would be foolish!"

"I wish I could do something to help," said Oswyth, sadly. "I wonder if I ought not to go in town this fall, even if I could only get a place in a store."

"And earn but six dollars a week, out of which you would have to pay your board? We have gone over that many times, dearie, and decided you are more useful here, even if I could allow a young girl like you to go alone into a city boarding-house," said her mother. "You are such a help to me, daughter, that I could not spare you, and you must frame your wish another way."

Oswyth looked pensively at her dimpled hands as she held them up over the dish-pan and let the water drip off of each of her ten fingers.

"I am going to do something perfectly original right here in Fayre; it is going to bring us money, and be a triumph of several sorts. I have no idea what it will be, but that's my plan," announced Rob. And as her family laughed at a "plan" so very loosely constructed, she waved her brush dramatically for further elucidation, and upset the saucer of blacking, spattering its contents broadcast over the spotless, though worn, oil-cloth covering the floor.

"Now, that's just like you, Rob," said Prue, severely. "You're more likely to do mischief with your schemes than to help much."

"That is hardly kind or true, Prudy," said her mother. "Rob's schemes usually come to something practically helpful. She's a daring girl, but not a rash one. Never mind, Rob dear; the blacking will easily wipe up. I shouldn't be at all surprised if you hit on a way to get us into a land flowing with milk and honey some day. But you are only sixteen now, and we must find a way to keep us alive in the desert while you finish growing up."

A long shadow fell across the door, and the four feminine members of the family looked up to greet its head with a smile. Clad in dark blue serge that hung loosely on his thin frame, Mr. Grey stood surveying the group, smiling back, but not entering. He was tall, handsome, his eyes dark and dreamy, yet with an eager expression in them, as if they had vainly sought that on which they could never rest. He was startlingly pale, except for a bright red spot high on each hollow cheek. Roberta more closely resembled him than either of the other girls, but in expression her rippling, alert brilliancy was wholly unlike the far-off, vague look of the father she worshipped.

"Oh, Patergrey," cried Roberta, springing to meet him, forgetful of her recent disaster and blackened hands, and giving him the caressing title—pronounced as one word—which she had long ago conferred upon him. "Where have you been 'one morning, oh, so early, my beloved, my beloved?'" Rob ended in the refrain of a song she loved.

"I went to the post-office, and I stopped at Mrs. Bonell's—she waylaid me," said Mr. Grey.

"You're keeping back something!" cried Rob, holding up her forefinger in a reproach that would have been more impressive if the forefinger had been whiter.

"He has a basket behind him," cried Prue, darting upon him. "What's in the basket, papa?"

"'Ware, Prue! Marked: Fragile. Don't handle," teased her father, holding Prue off with one hand. "Mrs. Bonell is going away."

"Where? For long?" asked Mrs. Grey, as Wythie exclaimed: "Oh, I am sorry."

"To Europe, for many months," said Mr. Grey. "And I've told her we would take a boarder."

"A boarder! Why, Sylvester!" cried his wife.

"I really thought you would like this one," said Mr. Grey. "It seemed very hard to say no. You see Mrs. Bonell said there was no one else in whom she would feel sufficient confidence to intrust this boarder to them, and when such a pretty young creature as she is flatters a weak man so, how can he resist? She says she knows we would never fail to the very end of his life to take care of him. She feels sure we are not the cruel sort of folk who would go away and leave him to shift for himself, nor put him out in the cold on winter nights when he had been in the warm house all day, and if he were sick that we would nurse him lovingly, and if he were suffering and past recovery we would chloroform him still more lovingly—in short, that we were ideal guardians of a cat. So I felt obliged to accept a rôle nature had evidently designed us to fill."

"A cat! Oh, bless you!" cried three rapturous girl voices, and Wythie added: "It isn't her lovely, white little Billee?"

"We have