bit, they asked if they might go and spend the day at Auntie Anna’s? She wasn’t their true aunt, they jest called her that, and she was nothin’ but a slave to ’em, and spoiled ’em--well, don’t talk! ‘But,’ said their mother, ‘if you go there to take tea, you will not have time to dress for the circus!’ ‘Why, then, dress us now; we’ll be careful of our things, mammy,’ said Edith, ‘and then we’ll come right from tea, by our ownselves--oh! please, mammy, yes by our ownselves, and we’ll stand on the corner over there and wave our hands and handkerchers to you for a sign for you to come to us, and then we’ll all go on up town together.’ They were jest sot on that plan. They felt it would be so big for them to come alone, those few blocks, and then to stand on the corner and make signs for her to come to them, and seein’ as she had already cross’d them once, she consented, and right away they were dressed and started off under the servant’s care to their auntie’s house for the rest of the day. When they had kissed her good-by about a dozen times--for the way they loved her jest was a caution now, I tell you--little Phil runs back and he up and said, ‘Mammy, I’ll take care of Edie--she’s the biggest, but I’m the strongest, and I’m the nearest to a man, ain’t I? So, I’ll hold her hand all the way when we’re alone, mammy, and I won’t let anybody speak to her, ’till you come down to us,’ and she kissed him again, and called him, as she often did, her ‘man-child,’ and away he went after Edie. The next time she saw the poor, little things, Phil was a keepin’ his word.