"Aunty Evelyn! Aunty Evelyn! are you waked up?"
Miss Tripp had been brooding since daylight over the accumulated problems which appeared to crowd her narrow horizon like so many menacing thunder-caps; but she summoned a faint smile to her lips as she opened the door.
"Why, good-morning, dears!" she cried cheerfully at sight of the two small figures in their gay dressing-gowns and scarlet slippers.
"We want to hear a story, Aunty Evelyn," announced Doris, prancing boldly in, each individual curl on her small head bobbing like coiled wire. "We like stories."
"Come here, pet, and let Aunty brush your curls."
"No; I don't want my curls brushed; I want to hear a story about a be-utiful princess going to seek her fortune."
Miss Tripp suppressed a vague sigh. "I know a poor, forlorn princess who is obliged to go out all alone into the cold world to seek her fortune," she said. "And I'm very much afraid she won't find it."
"Is she young and be-utiful?" asked Doris, with wide-eyed attention. "An' has she got a spangled dress?"
"Dot a spangled dwess?" cooed Richard, like a cheerful little echo.