Dele was bright and merry. She "bossed" the house, for Mrs. Whitney had subsided into novel-reading again, and now took books out of the Mercantile Library. A woman was doing the Saturday morning's work, and scrubbing the areas. After that she went over the front one with a red wash that looked like paint, and freshened it. The girls took a run in the yard. There was a long flower-bed down the side of the fence, and at one end all manner of sweet herbs, lavender, thyme, and rosemary, sweet verbena, and then tansy and camomile, and various useful things. "Camomile tea is good for you when you lose your appetite," said Nora; "but it's awful bitter. Aunt Patty cuts off the leaves and blossoms of the sweet herbs, and sews them up in little bags of fine muslin, and lays them among the clothes and the nice towels and pillow-cases. And it makes them all smell just delicious." The air was full of fragrance now. They played tag around the grass-plot. Daisy sat on the stoop and said she didn't mind, though she gave a little sigh, and wondered how it would feel to run about. The little lame girl in Houston Street could get over the ground pretty rapidly. She had interested Doctor Joe in her, and he had hunted up the child's mother, who wouldn't listen to anything being done for her. "Sure," said she, "if it's the Lord's will to send this affliction to her, I'll not be flying in the face of Providence. She can manage, and she's impident enough now. There'd be no livin' with her if she had two good legs. And I'll not have any doctor cuttin' her up into mince-meat." Pussy Gray came and sat beside Daisy with a flick of the ear and turn of the tail, as if he said: "We'll let those foolish girls fly about and squeal and laugh and get half roasted, while we sit here at leisure and enjoy ourselves." Afterward they swung, and then went up to Nora's play-house. Aunt Patty had given her a rag doll that she had when she was a little girl, and it was over fifty years old. It was undeniably sweet, because it had been steeped in lavender, but it was not very pretty. There was a curious little wooden cradle Aunt Patty's brother had made. All the children's story-books were up here in a case Dele had made out of a packing box. They thought after a little they would rather go over in the Park. Nora took the key. It was very pleasant; and they watched the carts and waggons going by, and the pedestrians. Presently a young woman unlocked the gate at the lower end, and came in with two little children rather queerly dressed. She had a white muslin cap on her head, very high in front. We often see them now, but then they were a rarity. The little children had very black eyes and curly black hair, and stared curiously at the group of girls.