What Two Children Did | Page 3

harness garters with their many buckles, and climbed up to see. Yes, the lines had gone, and she kissed the place to make sure before she climbed down again.
"Hoty potys is the twissedest things," she remarked, worse tangled than ever.
"Hose supporters, dear child," corrected Ethelwyn with the exasperating air that always roused Beth's wrath.
"This cottage," mother hastened to say, while she untangled the buckles with one hand and buttoned Ethelwyn's waist with the other, "belongs to Mrs. Stevens and her daughter, Dorothy. I have known them for years. Recently they wrote asking me to bring you children and come to them for the summer; they, too, were lonely, and they knew that I needed rest, quiet, and time to plan for the future. There are few people living here but fisher folk--"
"Christ's people?"
"Yes, like them in trade, at least. They are poor and need help--"
"Are we rich people now, and can we buy things for them?"
"Your grandfather left you a great deal of money, children, and you must learn to use it generously. It was his wish, and mine, that you should begin at once to think about such things before you learn to love money for its own sake, and what it will buy."
"O, we don't care at all, do we, sister?" said Beth, stretching up on tiptoe to get her "bawheady" from the bureau. "We'd just as lief give it away as not, 'cause we've always you, mother dear."
"Is the money more than grandmother's gold dollar?" asked Ethelwyn.
"Much more."
"O, then we'll have fun spending it for folks; I'd like to. But, oh, I'm hungrier than I ever was before."
"Me, too," said Beth. "I feel a great big appeltite inside me."
They decided at once that the dining-room also was charming, with its cheery open fire of snapping pine knots, for the air outside was chilly. Then, too, there was a parrot on a pole, who greeted them with, "Well, well, well, what's all this? Did you ever?"
Miss Dorothy Stevens had the kind of face that children take to at once. There never could be any question about Aunty Stevens, who laughed every time they said anything, and who on top of their excellent breakfast, brought them in some most delicious cookies--just the kind you would know she could make, sugary and melty, entirely perfect, in fact,--to take down on the beach for luncheon.
After breakfast was over they at once started for the beach. Sierra Nevada, their colored nurse, following them with small buckets, shovels, wraps, and cushions.
"Mother, this is the nicest place, and I love the Stevenses; but why are they sad around the eyes, and dressed in black, like you? Has their father gone to Paradise too?" asked Ethelwyn, as they walked along.
"Yes, dear. Besides, the young captain whom Dorothy was going to marry went away last year and, his ship was wrecked and he has never been heard from. So they fear he was drowned."
"O, mother, can this pretty sea do that? What was it they were saying about a tide?"
Their mother tried to explain all she knew about the tides, and when she had finished, Ethelwyn said:
"I think it would be easier to remember to call it tied, and then untied."

CHAPTER III Beth and Her Dolls
Dollie's poor mother is quite full of care, As she who lived in a shoe, For this child is tousled, this one undressed-- Mother has all she can do. More dollies there are, than possible clothes, Some of them must go to bed. And some to be healed by mother with glue, Lacking an arm or a head. Then others, wearing the invalid's clothes, Care not a fling or a jot Nor know that to-morrow their own fate may be The bed, or the mucilage pot.
The first Sunday that the children were at the seashore was warm and beautiful.
Mrs. Rayburn and Mrs. Stevens went to church in the picturesque stone chapel built by a sea captain, as a memorial to his daughter who was drowned on the coast some years before this.
"We'll be really better girls to stay at home some of the church time," said Ethelwyn at breakfast, "we'll go this evening with Miss Dorothy."
"My dolls are needing a bath and their best clothes for Sunday-school," said Beth to Ethelwyn, who had decided to go down on the beach; "and I can do it all comfy and nice while you are gone."
So Ethelwyn and 'Vada went for a run on the beach, and mother Elizabeth, with a look of happy care on her face, and her beloved six dolls in her arms, came out on the porch, where she had already taken a basin of water, soap, a tiny sponge, and towels.
Directly she became aware of some one near her, and looking up saw a girl with dark eyes and