"Berries," Shirley answered wisely. "I saw 'em. Couldn't Winnie make us chocolate ice-cream?"
"Oh, she wouldn't have time to make it," said Rosemary, "but I'll ask her if I can't telephone the drug-store and have them send us some. There your shoes are, honey. Now hurry and get dressed."
Dr. Hugh Willis, coming down from his mother's sick-room at the summons of the musical chime which announced the dinner hour, thought he had never seen a pleasanter sight than greeted his eyes in the dining-room. The room itself was pleasant and airy and the last rays of the sun struck the table set with fresh linen and a simple and orderly array of silver. But it was the three joyous faces turned expectantly toward him that caught and held his attention. Rosemary, in white from head to foot, stood behind her mother's chair and all the light in the room seemed to center in her eyes and hair. Shirley, looking like a particularly wholesome and adorable cherub from her sunny curls and wide, gray eyes to her fat and dimpled knees scuffled in an impatient circle around her own special seat and Sarah, a stout and stolid little Indian in tan linen and scarlet tie, showed her one beauty—a set of strong, even white teeth—in an engaging smile.
"Well how smart we are," smiled the doctor, surveying them appreciatively. "Seems to me everyone is dressed up to-night."
"We wanted to have things nice—because Mother is going to get well," said Rosemary with simple directness.
For answer Dr. Hugh came forward and pulled out her chair for her, "just as if I were a grown-up woman," she recounted with pride to her mother later, and then lifted Shirley to her seat and tied on her bib dexterously.
"We're going to have ice-cream," Sarah informed him.
"That's fine," he commented a trifle absently, beginning to carve. When he had served them all, he spoke seriously.
"Girls," he said, "I'm going to send a telegram after dinner to-night to Aunt Trudy Wright. Mother wants her to come and stay with you while she is away; I don't think she can begin to mend until she knows that she has provided for you."
"Oh, Hugh!" Rosemary mashing potato for Shirley's hungry consumption, looked distressed. "I can keep house, I know I can. We don't need Aunt Trudy."