"Milk Toast! the only thing I could eat! why—who made it?"
"If it hadn't been for Toaster, it couldn't have been made," said Mary Frances.
Her mother looked at the little girl in surprise.
"I mean," she added, "that Toaster really did it—he showed me how——"
"Oh!" laughed her mother, as she lifted a slice of toast out on a saucer. "Well, dear, anyway I want you to have some toast with Mother"—and she handed the saucer to Mary Frances, who said she would much rather watch her mother eat it than to have some herself; but, after her first taste, she found how hungry she was.
"It's the best toast I ever ate," said her mother, "and Mary Frances, dear, I feel much better already."
She would have said more had not Mary Frances' brother bounded up the stairs two steps at a time with,——
"What do you think! I met Father downtown, and he says Aunt Maria's coming over to keep house for us. In the daytime, she must be at home; but she'll come over to get breakfast for us, and we'll go there for our dinners—and Father says Mother is going to the seashore to have a 'perfect rest' until she's well. Anyhow, I'm glad we won't starve. I wish Sis knew how to cook!" and he teasingly pulled one of Mary Frances' curls.