Aunt Effie decided for blue and fortunately they found a nice, long blue ribbon and a white dress of Alice's that was just the thing. Such fitting and pinning and dressing and tying you never saw. And when it was all done, Aunt Effie looked so much like a little girl that she couldn't help but act like one and she and the "dress-up" auntie played together all the morning long.
So much fun did they have that mother had to call twice to make them understand that lunch was ready!
"Here, you show me how you want things put away, Mary Jane," said Aunt Effie hastily when they finally heard. "Let's scramble them away so as not to keep mother waiting."
"We'll put them right on the top in the box," said Mary Jane, "'cause we'll want to play some more—lots!"
And they did, many times.
KEWPIE AND THE WASHING
One morning a few days after the dress-up fun Aunt Effie had to go down town on some errands and Mary Jane was left to play by herself. She and her auntie had grown to be such good play fellows that it was hard to find something interesting to do without Aunt Effie to join in the fun.
"Why don't you find something to do and then do it?" said Mrs. Merrill after Mary Jane had made pictures on the window pane and rummaged through the mending basket and poked her finger into the canary's cage and fingered the forbidden little green balls on the ends of the fern leaves. "Little girls can't expect to have a good time when they do all the things they are not allowed to do. Go and play with Marie Georgiannamore, you haven't played with her since Aunt Effie came."
"Will you play too?" asked Mary Jane.
"Not for a while yet, dear," replied mother, "because this is wash morning and I have a new laundress to look after. Didn't you see her come around the house when we were at breakfast? I have to go downstairs and show her how we like our clothes washed and starched. Don't you want to go along?"