"Oh, Papa Adams!" exclaimed Polly joyfully. "Home so early?" "Yes," answered the doctor, as he dropped into the chair next Alan; "and I'm going to play all the rest of the evening. How comes on our future doctor?" "Doctor!" echoed Polly. "He said to-night that he'd rather be an undertaker than anything else." "Why, how's that?" said the doctor, laughing. "It isn't a week since Polly told me you were going to follow in my footsteps." "Oh, Polly has doctor on the brain, just now," answered the boy. "She's started up Jessie on the subject, and they do nothing but talk of pills and skeletons. To-night we were discussing what we'd like best to do, and the girls had such wild plans that I thought I'd bring them down to earth again." "If you can't make better puns than that, don't try to make any, Alan," said Polly severely. "But our plans weren't wild a bit; we only said just what we would do, if we had all the money in the world." "And what was the decision," asked the doctor; "cooking and sewing, or society belles?" "Neither," Polly was beginning earnestly, when Alan broke in,-- "I'll tell you, Dr. Adams, and you can see for yourself if they weren't a little extra. Jean was going to know everything; Molly was going to travel everywhere; Polly was going to found an orphan asylum in her house, and write poetry, besides; and Katharine wanted to support poor but honest young men by the dozen. I think that's all but Jessie. She's going to study medicine." "Such aspiring young people!" said the doctor. "You'll need all the treasures of the earth at your disposal, if you have such magnificent plans. If you are going to undertake so much, then good-by to bread-making and Bridget. And that reminds me to tell you, children, Bridget is going home, the last of next week." "Next week?" said Mrs. Adams. "What is that for? Her year isn't over." "No, but she has gained faster than we thought she could, and she is now almost as well as ever. If she hadn't been taken in time, it would have been much harder to cure her; but now we think that, if she is careful, she can go home to her family again. We told her so to-night, and she was half wild for a moment; but then she began to cry, because she must leave her 'dear young ladies,' as she called you." "Oh, dear, what shall we ever do without her?" sighed Polly. "I was really getting quite fond of her. Now I'll have to devote myself to Dicky and the other babies." "Bridget has improved in your hands," said the doctor. "You girls, without knowing it, have been doing the best kind of mission work, and the Bridget who goes home will be a much more attractive Bridget than the one who came here, for she has learned that there is something a little beyond her old life of drudgery that she can hope for and, in the end, gain." "Hark! What's that?" exclaimed Mrs. Adams abruptly.