The Ethels were always glad to relieve her of her responsibilities for an hour or two, and it was the afternoon of the day after Roger had reported his plan to the Club that found the cousins strolling down Church Street, "Ayleesabet" between them, clinging to a finger of each, not to help her stand upright but to serve as a pair of supports from which she might swing herself off the ground. "See! She lifted her whole weight then!" exclaimed Ethel Blue. "We shall have to give up calling her 'baby' soon. She's becoming an acrobat!" "It's all due to Miss Merriam. I wish she didn't look so tired the last few days." Ethel Blue made no reply. She guessed something of the reason that had made Miss Gertrude appear distressed and silent. A certain note that she herself had placed in a May basket and hung on Miss Merriam's door might have something to do with her appearance of anxiety. She changed the subject as a measure of precaution, for she had been in the confidence of Dr. Watkins, the elder brother of Tom and Delia and a warm admirer of Miss Merriam's, and she did not want the conversation to run into channels where she might have to answer inconvenient questions. "This scheme of Roger's is pretty tremendous," she began by way of introducing a theme in which Ethel Brown would be sure to be interested. "We--the Club, I mean--never has 'fallen down' yet on anything, even some of our 'shows' that we didn't have much time to get up, so we ought to have confidence in ourselves as a Club." "With this next undertaking, though, we don't really know how the thing is done." "How to make over the house, you mean?" "How to make over the house and how to run the Fresh Air settlement when the house is made over." "There's no doubt we'll know more at the end of the summer than we know now! We've got to get information from every source we can." "The way Roger has up to now." "We must think of every one we know who has made over a house, and Dr. Watkins ought to be able to tell us of some people who have had Fresh Air children staying with them, so we can get some idea about what they need and how a house is managed." "Come, come." A chirp rose from near the ground. Ayleesabet was tired of being disregarded for so long. "You blessed Lamb!" cried Ethel Blue. "Did you say, 'Come, come,' just because you heard it? Did you think we were talking very learnedly about things we didn't know much about! Never mind, ducky daddles, we'll know a lot about them six months from now!" "Just the way we've learned a lot about babies in the last six months from this little teacher!" added Ethel Brown. "Come, come. Home, home," remarked Elisabeth insistently. "What's the matter? Are your leggies tired? Want the Ethels to carry you?" Elisabeth made it known that she would like some such method of transportation, and sat joyfully on a "chair" which the two girls made by interclasping their wrists. Not for long did this please her ladyship.