“But, Aunt Carry, how can I get to school? I’ll be late!” “Well, gracious, what if you are! Don’t be so fussy! Time was made for slaves!” That was Aunt Carry’s favorite motto, which she was always citing, and for citing which there were plenty of occasions in her life. Little Pearl thought somewhat resentfully, as she rummaged in her trunk for her other shoes, that if Aunt Carry had to enter the school-room late and get scolded, she’d think differently about time! But anyhow it was fun to wear her best shoes if she liked, and to watch their patent leather tips twinkling as she scurried about. They twinkled very fast during that quarter of an hour, as Pearl collected her wraps (her mittens she never did find after that day) and tried to scare up something for breakfast in the disordered kitchen, where the cat, installed on the table, was methodically getting a breakfast by licking the dirty plates clean. Pearl was not so lucky, and had to go off to school with a cracker in one hand and a piece of marshmallow cake in the other. The less said about her hair the better! Grandmother Manley’s “forty thousand kisses” were not quite so wonderful this morning as they had been last night. At noon Pearl ran home, her stomach in her heels, all one voracious demand for good food. Aunt Carry was crocheting by the window and there was no sign of any lunch. “Mercy me!” cried Grandmother Manley, “Is it noon? Why, how the morning has gone!” And then with the utmost compunction they both rushed out into the kitchen and began to hurry with all their might to get something for Pearl to eat. The kitchen fire was pretty low, and there were no potatoes cooked, and Aunt Carry had forgotten to order any eggs, and the milk bottle had been left outside and was frozen hard. Hurry as they might and apologize to Pearl almost with tears as they did, it was very little that Pearl had eaten when she went back to school, and she knew well enough that they would forget to-morrow, just as they had to-day. No, already Pearl felt that life could not be made _wholly_ out of kisses and good nature. By nightfall, her thin kid shoes were rather scuffed and very wet, with a break in one of the patent leather tips where Cousin Tom had stepped on it, in a scuffle with his brother. Little Pearl nursed her sore toe and broken shoe with a weary feeling.