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??? ????? up Register +128K Another time he would have gone quickly enough, for he liked work as little as the average boy, often shirked it; though when he forgot himself in his task, the joy of doing it well held him to it. But May Nell’s coming and the added expense still troubled him; and it was a resolute face he turned to his mother. “No, mamma, you shan’t get down on your marrow bones to these old floors. It’s only me that needs to go on the knees, you know.” His eyes twinkled.,Her anxiety somewhat allayed for the moment, Mrs. Mifsud roused herself for the entertainment of her guests.,What if the Italians should be there? Impossible. Surely they would be on the mountain fighting fire. What if the door should be locked? The thought made him tremble, yet he hurried on and softly tried the handle. It would not open!,“Now ef you would jist play ‘Home Sweet Home’ with variations, my dear, we’ll arterwards hev a game of crokinole. Crokinole is sich an amusin’ game.”,“Avaunt, hesitating noddy! The angel child is quite safe!” Bess waved an arm, partly bare and brown in spots.，“I’m the Royal Egyptian Fortune Teller!” Bess announced, in a deep voice. “This is my desert tent. I shall reveal the past, present, and future to those only whom my favor shall designate. Slaves, the lamps!”，“Oh, yes; yes, there is, Billy.” May Nell lifted a teary face. “Five children! If it had been two, or perhaps I could possibly bring up three; but f-five, o-o-oh!” she wailed again, heedless of the laughter around her.，After the opening exercises of the Sunday-school session, Mrs. Wopp was pained to notice that some of her scholars did not consider attention to the lesson any part of their duty. However, that strict disciplinarian had a vast store of startling reprimands that set all eyes gazing on her sincere countenance.“I’ll make a note of that, Lize.”

“Miss Gordon here, made me a harnsome lace yoke fer an underwaist, an’ give it to me fer my birthday,” volunteered Mrs. Wopp.,They came to the crest of the gorge. “We’ll have to slow up and zig-zag down carefully or they’ll hear us an’ get away,” Billy suggested.,When Edith planned to turn her pupils’ recital into a great Spring Festival, for the benefit of the sufferers, all the town applauded, and asked how it could help.,May Nell looked at him a minute before speaking. “You like doing things, but you don’t like work. Isn’t work doing things?”,Edith worked very hard. She called her operetta “The Triumph of Flora.” The words were her own, written hurriedly and set to familiar though classic airs. Yet many of the daintiest, most tripping melodies she wrote herself. The sorrows of humanity had winged her brain and dipped her pen in harmonies, that she might assuage them.,“Ebenezer, you might bring in my slumber robe, bein’s I’m so busy an’ Mose an’ Betty’s gone to bed.”,“Never mind, Bouncer. I’ve another card up my sleeve!” He patted and hugged the old dog till his tail waved once more gracefully over his back. “Here! Try this. Sic ’em!” Billy thrust the scraps of red silk under his nose; and in an instant Bouncer was off after the new scent.,“Jethro barks with his mouth an’ smiles with his tail,” said Betty.,“Good dog! I understand you, Bouncer, and I’m not lonesome any more.”,As ordered two of the posse were closing in from the west toward the rendezvous. A few more steps and the four met. Those who had been ordered to beat the mountain about the spring were waiting below; the fire had perfectly policed that territory.,Though these and similar remarks seemed rather personal no resentment was felt by anybody.,“Hooray, Billy! Thirteen to-morrow! But this is the day we celebrate!”.