"Yes; two pounds? That's the third time this month; our bill will be pretty big. If I'm very busy I will not be home to dinner." "Sha'n't I fix some lunch for you?" "I haven't time to wait. Where's my rubbers?" "I don't know. Kat, did you have Olive's rubbers last night?" "Yes, and I don't know any more than Adam where I put them. Look in the closet, Olive, and I'll run up stairs and see," answered Kat, departing in haste. "Well, I wish you would let my things alone," said Olive testily, throwing down her mittens and veil, and diving into the closet; the general closet, as it was called, where everything, from the kitchen stove-hook to the girls best Sunday-go-to-meeting bonnets, were apt to find a lodging at odd times. "I never can be on time," she muttered, slamming things around and comparing various odd rubbers. "This closet looks like a demented bedlam. I'd be ashamed, that's what I would." "I can't do everything," answered Bea in a hurry, feeling that the thrust was meant for her. "Because I'm housekeeper, it doesn't rest on me to keep everything in perfect order, when you all help to muss up." "It's like distraction without mama, anyhow," declared Kittie, departing for the kitchen, with her hands full of dishes, and scowling defiantly at the stove, where the fire was sizzling with a lazy sputter, while the dish-water taking advantage of the lull in heat, cooled at leisure. "Pretty near as bad without Huldah," was Ernestine's comment. "I'm nearly starved for a splendid good meal like we used to have, when we could eat all we wanted, and didn't have to think how much it cost, or worry with cooking it." "You do less than anybody towards getting it," said Olive, coming flushed and impatient from her vain search. "If Kat doesn't leave my things alone, I'll--" "Let not your angry passions rise," cried Kat, coming in with a rubber whirling on each hand, and quoting her copy-book with cheerful disregard for any one's anger. "Here's your rubbers, my dear, and I found them right where I put them, on the end of our mantel-piece, where I put them in plain sight so as not to forget to bring them down this morning, as my prophetic soul felt a row in the air if they were not in sight at six and a half, sharp." "You talk like a lunatic," was Olive's sole response as she drew them on. "It's my only talent, dear," answered Kat cheerfully, beginning to work on the table, where she made the dishes rattle. Bea trailed slowly through the room with her broom and dust pan, and a rather discontented face. Olive tied on her veil and hurried away to her daily business; Ernestine went to practice a new piece 'till the first scholar should arrive; and Kittie and Kat were left to the bliss of dish-washing and kitchen work. So began the day. This was several weeks after events last recorded, and all things in the Dering household had changed much.