"Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear! They's sech a drefful many things to do, and I doesn't see how we's ever going to do all of them, not ever, ever at all!"
"Not ever, ever at all!"
Mary and Wilhelmina stood still and looked at each other, then burst into a merry laugh. The great bell in the belfry high up over the roof of the convent had just stopped ringing to spread the news that a new school year was about to begin; and the two girls, with two book carriers apiece, were on their way across the lawn to the little gate in the low wall—the little gate, the hinges of which would have no chance now to rust.
"Forever more! What have you children to do that can't just as well be left undone, I should like to know? Even Mary and I don't expect to do any real work to-day. We just have to show up in the study hall and in our classroom and see our music teacher and find out where the lessons are for to-morrow. But we don't have to study or recite this morning; and the chances are, we won't have to go back at all this afternoon. The boarders will be unpacking their trunks, but I know Sister will let me off until Mother has gone. But just what you are groaning about, Berta, is more than I can see."
"Why, Willy-mean, they's ever and ever so many things we must do, and Jack and Dick won't be here to-morrow to help us, you know, 'cause Aunt Etta said she's going to take them home early, early in the morning-time 'mejetly after breakfus."
"Then I think it is too bad that you should ask them to work on the very last day of their visit. I am sure they did quite enough of that in the city. You ought to play all day and have a jolly time."
"Oh, we don't mind working, Mary; but there's one thing it seems to me we oughtn't to do, and that's sweep all the gravel off the paths and driveway. I told Berta everybody in the country has walks like that; but she thinks the kind you had in the city are nicer, and that if we sweep the little white stones off, we'll find that kind under them."
"No, no, you wouldn't, Berta; and Father won't be one bit pleased if you spoil the walks that way. And Jerry—well, I don't know what Jerry would think of little girls who would do such a thing after all the trouble he has taken to roll them so nice and smooth."
"But—but, Mary, when we fall ourselfs down, we scratch our poor little hands and knees on those old stones, so we do."
"Then play on the grass where you can't hurt yourselves."