CHAPTER XVII.
VINNIE MAKES A BEGINNING.
Vinnie learned only too soon why Jack had dreaded so much to have her enter the Betterson household; and, in a momentary depression of spirits, she asked herself whether, if she had known all she was undertaking, she would not have shrunk from it.
The sight of the sick ones, the mother enfeebled in mind as well as in body, Lord Betterson pompous and complacent in the midst of so much misery, little Lill alone making headway against a deluge of disorder,—all this filled her with distress and dismay.
She could think of no relief but in action.
"I shall stifle," thought she, "unless I go to work at once, setting things to rights."
And the thought of helping others cheered herself.
She needed something from her trunk. That was at the door, just where Jack had left it. She went out, and found that Chokie had changed his mind with regard to digging a well, and was building a pyramid, using the door-yard sand for his material, a shingle for a shovel, and the trunk for a foundation.
"Why, Chokie!" she said; "what are you doing?"
"I makin' a Fourth-of-Duly," replied Chokie, flourishing his shingle. "After I dit it about twice as bid as the house, I doin' to put some powder in it, and tout'th it off."