It was near the end of the week. Already Woodsedge seemed to have wakened, drawn a long breath, and assumed that pleasant expression so earnestly sought for by generations of photographers. In fact, the old house had taken on a homelike look, and both the girls had been sewing at break-needle speed trying to finish some muslin curtains that they wished to have put up in their own room before Sunday, as those windows were in full view of Broadway drivers, and they felt that propriety demanded muslin curtains as well as shades. And this, according to Lena, was "Friday alretty," so together they were driving Dick, the canary, nearly wild by singing against him over their work, when John Lawton, wearing an ancient alpaca coat and a mournful and repentant straw hat, appeared upon the porch clasping a left finger in a very bloody right hand; remarking, with his usual moderation of speech: "I think I have got a cut." "Do you, indeed?" Sybil snapped, as she rushed for an old handkerchief. "I suppose a severed artery would about convince you of the fact! Bring me a bit of thread, Dorrie! Oh, you white-faced goose, that screech of yours has brought mamma!" And mamma was followed by the ever-faithful Lena. And so it happened that Mr. Lawton's injured finger drew to his service four devoted women. Sybil, first pouring some fair water over the cut, proceeded to bandage it with a bit of old linen. Dorothy, keeping her face averted, held out a spool of white silk. Lena, with a trail of rejected cobweb in one hand and an enormous pair of shears in the other, waited to cut the thread off; while Mrs. Lawton, with eye-glasses on nose, superintended Sybil's efforts and sagely advised her that if she wound the bandage too tight it would stop circulation, and if it were too loose it would come off, and---- "And if I should get it just right, what would happen, mamma?" meekly questioned the girl. "Why--why--er," confusedly stammered Mrs. Lawton, "why--really I----" "Your mother can't conceive the idea of anything being just right, this side of our heavenly home, my dear," gravely remarked her husband, which was unexpected, not to say ungrateful. "John!" sternly spoke the lady, "instead of jeering at the wife of your bosom in the presence of your children----" "There, mamma washes her hands of us, you see, Dorrie," interposed Sybil; but Mrs. Lawton went straight on: "--you would do well, first, to remember that though I have lost my illusions, I have not neglected my religious duties, and next to explain what you were about to get a cut shaped like that?" "O observant mamma!" laughed Sybil, while Lena remarked, with unconscious impertinence: "I tink dot cut make himself mit a sickle alretty. Ain't dot so, my Herr Mister?" "Oh, papa," cried both girls, "you were never trying to cut the grass yourself, were you?" "Why not?" asked the old gentleman. "It needs it badly, and it will be a bit of change saved if I can do it myself."