"I promise I will, auntie. And I'll amuse Ivy. Mayn't I have the pictures to show her? I'll keep her ever so quiet."
Miss Anne thought that of the two Ivy would need less "keeping quiet" than Hecla; but she did not say so. "Yes, I hope you will," she replied. "Any noise makes Auntie Millicent's head worse. You shall have the pictures; only you must turn them over carefully, and not crumple the corners."
Hecla clapped her hands.
"Oh, I forgot!" she said, as Miss Anne put a finger to her lips. "I won't again."
"Try to remember. I would leave you both with Prue, but she has Elisabeth's work to do as well as her own, so she cannot attend to you. Mind, Hecla, you are the older, and I shall count you responsible. Do you know what that means?"
Hecla weighed the question. "No," she said. "Is sponresible something nice?"
"It means that if things go wrong, you will be the one blamed, and not Ivy, because she is so little. But Ivy must be good too."
"Mayn't we go into the garden, please? I do love being there. I'll take such heaps of care of Ivy."
"You shall go into the garden when I come back; and I shall try to be early. Till then you must play in the bow-window, while Auntie Millicent lies on the drawing-room sofa. Suppose you try to teach Ivy a little about some of the pictures."
"Oh, that'll be lovely!" exclaimed Hecla, with a leap in her chair. "I know!—we'll have Sunday school. And I'll have a class; and Ivy shall be my class."