"Yes, of course you are," said Fritz and Denny.
"Mother's dedfully good," said Baby, poking up his face from her knee where he had again perched himself, to kiss her. "Do tell him one story of when you was a little girl, mother."
Mother's face seemed for a minute rather puzzled. Then it suddenly cleared up.
"I will tell you a very little story," she said; "it really is a very little story, but it is as long as I have time for just now, and it may amuse you. Baby's packing put it in my head."
"Is it about when you were a little girl, mother?" interrupted Denny.
"Yes. Well, when I was a little girl, I had no mother."
The elder children nodded their heads. But Baby, to whom it was a new idea, shook his sadly.
"Zat was a gate pity," he said. "Poor mother to have no mother. Had you no shoes and stockings, and nothing nice to eat?"
"You sill——" began Denny, but mother stopped her.
"Oh yes," she said, "I had shoes and stockings, and everything I wanted, for I had a very kind father. You know how kind grandfather is? And I had a kind sister whom you know too. But when I was a little girl, my sister was not herself very big, and she had a great deal to do for a not very big girl, you know. There were our brothers, for we had several, and though they were generally away at school there seemed always something to do for them—letters to write to them, if there was nothing else—and then, in the holidays, there were all their new shirts, and stockings, and things to get to take back to school. Helen seemed always busy. She had been at school too, before your grandfather came back from India, for five years, bringing me with him, quite a wee little girl of four. And Helen was so happy to be with us again, that she begged not to go back to school, and, as she was really very well on for her age, grandfather let her stay at home."