"Oh," said Margie, in a relieved tone; "but wasn't it strange that just as you said something about D, old nurse D. came across the street with the washing, and of course I thought you meant her. Here she comes out again, and the poor thing can hardly stand, it is so slippery. Mamma"—as Mrs. Goold entered the room—"why does D. bring the clothes still? I should think Rosa would offer to come with them, instead of sending her old aunt out. Why, just see! she can scarcely stand."
"Rosa does not send her, dearie," said Mrs. Goold, joining her little girls at the window, "for she told me she thought it dangerous for Dinah to be out in the winter so unprepared as she is, but that Dinah persists in coming, no matter what the weather, that she may inquire herself about 'de chillen.'"
"Good old D.," said Fay, using the name that Lilla—the first baby—had given Dinah, and both the others had adopted in their turn. "Why, mamma," continued the little one, straining her eyes to catch a glimpse of Dinah's departing figure, "how will she ever get home? There! good! Rosa has met her. I'm so glad!"
"D. needs a pair of that new kind of rubbers that we stopped to look at to-day in Mr. Brooks's store window," said Lilla, putting away her books, "and then she could get along finely."
"Let's get her a pair," exclaimed the wide-awake Margie, "when we go for our valentines. Will you give us the money, mamma? I think the price is a dollar."
"I'll give twenty-five cents toward it," answered Mrs. Goold, as she laid some money on the table, and left the room.
"Of course mamma means by that that we ought to give the rest. What do you say to getting the rubbers, instead of valentines for Lou and Jess?" suggested Margie.
"Then they won't send us any. They never do, you know, until they get ours."
"That's so; and Madge Hammond proposed to-day that all the girls bring their valentines to school Monday, and we want to have as many as we possibly can, and here"—spreading them out upon the table as she spoke—"so far I've got only three."
Fay's brown eyes were opening wider and wider as she listened. "Papa gave me a lot of pennies to send a vantaline to Cousin Daisy, but I'd rather send a rubber vantaline to Dinah."