was met by a lofty stare from Elise. "Guests do not ask about kitchen arrangements," she said; "but if you are troubled, Mrs. Herrick, you may be allowed a glance into our culinary department."

So saying, Elise led the way, and behold! the kitchen in perfect order, and not a dish in view!

Mrs. Herrick looked her amazement, but she only said: "What well-trained servants you must have!"

"Yes, the waitress cleared the table, then ate her own supper; then the housemaid came from the parlor to relieve the cook, who had most of the dishes washed. The cook left the dish washing to play on the piano," Elise explained. "Well," said Mrs. Herrick, "I must express my delight over my first evening's entertainment. I don't know when I have enjoyed myself more; but I hope you will not go to any undue labor for the remainder of my stay." "With servants so well trained as ours, ours, madam, nothing is a labor, and entertaining but a joy and pastime," said Elizabeth. "Marion," she added, "show Mrs. Herrick to her room."

The latter was in beautiful order, the bed decked out in the best bed-linen, with freshly laundered covers on dressing-table and chiffonnier, and with flowers about the room.

Marion asked if their guest wished a maid's

services.

Receiving a brief negative, she quickly withdrew to throw herself on the couch down-stairs and give way to laughter.

"Oh, it is such fun! and mother acts it out so well, if she did forget about the dishes!" she said to her sisters.

The next morning a friend, who was in the secret, called in her carriage to take Mrs. Herrick driving "with friends she wished her to meet "who proved to be two neighbors. In the afternoon they all sat quietly with their work on the piazza.

One day Elise and her mother returned some calls long due, and everywhere Elise explained that her mother was visiting her, and begged them to call.

Friends planned to call different days, and, entering into the spirit of the thing, Mrs. Her

rick was invited out informally more than she had been for a year. She thoroughly enjoyed it, and her hostesses declared she looked ten years younger. Elise rearranged the pretty gray hair in a new style which she had learned when away, and it proved vastly becoming. Elizabeth and Marion did all the mending, and Elise, who was unusually deft with her needle, made over a white dress for her guest, so that it looked like new. Elise tried to economize and yet have palatable meals, and she found a certain excitement in her growing success.

But both she and her sisters also realized, as they never had before, how much care, how many unexpected things, turned up every day; how dull the round of household tasks may become in years of performance. They could not understand this fully in three weeks' time; but they received a new impression of a mother's duties and responsibilities in a cookless household where straitened means required the most careful economy. careful economy. They had supposed themselves well informed and helpful assistants to their mother, and Elise especially was most capable; but it is a very different thing to help an efficient housekeeper when other things do not interfere, and to have the whole care of a household. Even now the care was divided among three, although Elise took the lead; and Elizabeth broke out one day, when interruptions innumerable had delayed the work, and the heat was almost unbearable: "To think of mammy going on this way for years and years, and sewing for us and planning to keep down expenses, and trying to dress three girls before Elise took care of herself!"

"And here I might have saved more and bought her a new dress, instead of just a hat. I don't see why and how my money goes so, when I've always been taught to economize. I must do better next year," Elise said.

"And Elizabeth and I must help more at home. Even when we go to school we might do more, with some planning and extra effort," Marion declared.

angels. And here my magazine awaits me, and Antoinette La Rue is impatiently expecting Elise to go to the Macnaughtons' garden-party, and Marion must bend her mind to plan tomorrow's breakfast, as it is her turn. I'm going to forget that I'm one third Cinderella and enjoy my beloved Rebecca,' while our guest lolls at her ease in her room. She certainly enjoys her visit more than any guest we ever had." And Elizabeth ran off with a light heart.

The two weeks came to a close; and Mrs. Herrick, who had been driving with a friend, drove up to the gate, and was met by her family with a welcome which was far too heartfelt to be mere acting.

Marion flung her arm about her. "Oh, I'm glad Mrs. Herrick is gone, mammy dear!" she said. "She was pleasant, and a 'real lady,' as Bridget used to say; but I have missed you! Elise is the best elder sister, but mothers are so comfy!" This was unusual from the usually quiet Marion. The other two hovered about her as they all went into the house.

"Well, all joking aside, girls," said Mrs. Herrick, "I am so happy! How well you have done! I did worry a little over the expense, but I hear that Elise met the extras with her own pocket-money, and the regular expenses are as usual. And what a rest it has been to me you cannot think! I am very proud of my girls, and I'm going to tell you a secret : Mothers get rather blue sometimes, thinking that all their sacrifice and labor is taken as a matter of course, and a charming little plan like this cheers and comforts her immensely."

"Elise planned it," said Elizabeth, generously.

"But I never could have carried it out without the girls. I had no idea they were so capable," Elise declared.

The mother hurried out into the kitchen to get the supper. She looked into the refrigerator. There was the fruit, the cold sliced ham on the platter.

"I believe I shall have French toast," she thought, and then started, for Elizabeth stood by her side.

"I'm going to beat the eggs," that irrepressible announced. "You 're not going to be out here alone working. I think company is so enlivening, and it oils the wheels, even of a silly fifteen-year-old. And, mother, Marion and I are going to have regular tasks even when we 're in school. Elise has talked it over with We have always helped by spasms, but now we 're going to help every single day, and all pull together."

us.

Elizabeth beat the eggs vigorously as she sang: "United we stand, divided we fall.'" But her mother did not answer as usual. She knew this daughter's aversion to kitchen-work, and unexpectedly a mist came before her eyes. The future years took on a rosier hue, for she saw at once that not only in the homely everyday tasks, but in the nearer, closer companionship, she was not to walk alone, but with three to help, not hinder. One had already taken her share of the burden, but now the others were to put their strong, willing shoulders to lift it further; and lo! it was a heavy burden no longer, but light as air.

WITH the approach of "Arbor Day," the teachers of the Enterprise public schools began to make their plans to observe the occasion with ceremonies which should be both enjoyable and appropriate. It was the general desire to create a real and lasting interest in trees and plants among the children, and to this end certain outdoor programs were to be carried

out.

This day was one to which all school-children looked forward with a certain amount of pleasure, for the exercises always consumed a part of the study and recitation hours, and sometimes school was dismissed early in honor of the day. This latter possibility was the chief attraction which the day offered to "Pinkey" Perkins, for his boyish mind never could see the real reason why it should take twenty-five or thirty children to plant one or two little trees, and why they always had to be planted on a certain day.

"Say, Bunny,'" said Pinkey to Bunny Morris one morning a few days before Arbor Day, "what do you say to going to the country Thursday afternoon? I heard that Red Feather' is going to give us a half-holiday as soon as we get the tree planted.”

"That'll be great!" replied Bunny, enthusiastically. "It'll be worth learning a verse to say at the exercises, and dressing up in your good clothes, if we can get off for the rest o' the afternoon. But how do you know she 's going to do it?"

"Joe Cooper said so, and I guess it came pretty straight. His sister, who teaches in the primary, told him, most likely. He would n't say for certain who told him. There's no use asking Red Feather."

The proof which Pinkey had produced satisfied Bunny's doubts, and forthwith the pair began laying their plans for their outing.

"Going to the country" meant a visit to the farm of one of Pinkey's uncles, who lived near Enterprise, and included a whole assortment of pleasures gathered together into one delightful excursion. It meant a swim in the pond when the weather was warm enough, a potato and apple roast in an outdoor oven dug in the hillside, and somersaults and other daring acrobatic feats in the large hay-mow.

When the program for Arbor Day had been arranged, each of Red Feather's pupils was given a sentiment or a few appropriate lines of poetry to commit to memory, it being her plan to have all her scholars take part in the actual planting of the tree, and the verse was to be repeated as each pupil tossed his or her shovelful of earth around the roots of the tree. The scholars entered into the spirit of the celebration with more interest than was customary on such occasions, for the rumor of a prospective half-holiday had spread through the school and had become a certainty in the minds of all.

Arbor Day came at last, and was heralded with delight on all sides. A more perfect spring day could not have been desired, the soft, balmy air provoking the outdoor spirit in all to arise and demand release from the oppression of the school-room. The morning session went on as usual.

Noontime finally came, and the children hurried homeward to prepare themselves for the afternoon's exercises. It was to be no ordinary occasion. All were to come in their best Sunday attire, and Red Feather had announced that she desired each of her pupils to wear a small twig of some sort in honor of the day.

It was a very different-appearing crowd that filed into the school-room when the last bell rang that afternoon. Several were tardy, their mothers having bestowed many unusual touches to the noonday toilet of their sons and daugh