"But please tell me what I am going to make, Gene."
"It is something that the babies cannot use until they are a little older, but they will have ever so much fun with it then. It is a pair of horse reins; and we shall sew tiny brass sleigh bells across the front and over the shoulders. Now, the first thing we need is a large spool."
"I know where to find one—in the machine drawer."
Into the top of the spool, Gene drove four strong pins, and fastening the red worsted around them, began the reins. "We shall make about five inches of each color, and your little sisters——"
"Our little sisters, Gene."
"Yes, of course—our little sisters will have the gayest horse reins you ever did see."
For the rest of the morning, Mary worked busily while Gene unpacked her trunk; and when the Doctor came home to luncheon, the little girl had added five inches of blue and five of yellow to the reins. She took her work down stairs to show it to him. "And, Uncle, I have something very important to ask you. Miss Donnelly says it will make her lonely to be called Miss anybody, and she has asked me to call her Gene. Of course, Mother told me always to say Miss. But Miss Donnelly thinks it would be nice to pretend we are sisters, and I wouldn't call my big sister, Miss."
"I am very sure, dear, that if it will make Miss Donnelly feel more at home with us, Mother would approve of your calling her Gene."
"Then you will have to call her that, too, Uncle; because if she is my sister, she is your niece; and you wouldn't call your own niece Miss somebody."
"Very well, if Miss Donnelly wishes me to call her Gene, I shall do so."