"Bet you'll give it up after the first day," prophesied Jack. "Taking care of cranky babies isn't what it is cracked up to be."
There were many afternoons when Rosemary recalled his words. She would have liked to give up, often. The babies were as good and sweet-tempered as babies usually are, but no child is angelic and the hot weather and their teeth troubles fretted the small people sadly. Rosemary was sometimes at her wits' end to keep her charges amused and there were days when she longed to fly home and rest her tired head on the cool pillow on her own little bed. She had never been forced to do anything steadily for long after she tired of it, and to be obliged to smile and play with a wailing, discontented baby on a hot, muggy afternoon did seem more than she could stand. But she had plenty of perseverance, had Rosemary, and when she once made up her mind to do a thing she stuck it out. Sarah and Shirley had ceased to worry about the ring. Rosemary would make it all right again for them—of that they had no doubt.
But if Aunt Trudy slept long hours and did not interfere with the goings and comings of her young nieces, she was not quite so unobservant as they sometimes thought.
"It seems to me that Rosemary is out of the house a good deal," she remarked one morning to Winnie. "She ought to take more of an interest in things here at the house."
"Well, I suppose it's only natural she should find a good deal to do outside," answered Winnie, who had not been blind to Rosemary's frequent absences, cautiously. "She's young, you know, and doing your duty gets tiresome after a bit."
But to herself, Winnie admitted that Rosemary seemed to have absolved herself from any responsibility toward her sisters. "Left them to shift for themselves," was the way Winnie put it. She was puzzled and also disappointed in her favorite, for indifference of any kind had never been a Rosemary trait.
"She ought to be looking after Sarah and Shirley some of the time," grumbled Winnie. "Those young ones are under my feet continually. The least Rosemary can do is to read to 'em now and then to keep them quiet."
That very afternoon Miss Mason, Rosemary's music teacher called to see Aunt Trudy. Rosemary's music was falling below its usual standard and that was a pity. Was she practising as faithfully as usual?
"I think it is a shame to waste all that money on music lessons, if you won't practise, Rosemary," announced her aunt at the dinner table that night.