“Of course, child,” Henriette agreed, benignly; “you are _always_ hungry. But I think you’ll agree I was lucky not to have bought that stove and those sausages this morning. Who do you think is coming to this town next week? Theodore Thomas, with his own orchestra! And just as I was going into that store to buy your stove—though I didn’t feel at all sure it wouldn’t explode and burn the house down—John Perley came up and gave me a ticket, an orchestra seat; and I said at once, ‘The girls must go too’; but I hadn’t but twenty-five cents, and no more coming in for a week. Then it occurred to me like a flash, there was this money you had given me; and, Paula, I made such a bargain! The man at Farrell’s, where they are selling the tickets, will get us three seats, not very far back in the gallery, for my orchestra seat and the money, and we shall have enough money left to take us home in the street cars. Now do you understand?” concluded Henriette, triumphantly. “Yes, sister Etty; it will be splendid,” responded Pauline, but with less enthusiasm than Henriette had expected. “Aren’t you glad?” she demanded. “Oh yes, I’m glad; but I’m so dead tired I can hardly talk,” said Pauline, as she left the room. She felt every stair as she climbed it; but her face cleared at the sight of Mysie coming through the hall. “It’s a lovely surprise, Mysie, isn’t it?” she cried, cheerfully. She always called Mysie by her Christian name, without prefix. Henriette, although of the same age, was so much more important a person that she would have felt the unadorned name a liberty. But nobody was afraid of Mysie. Pauline wound one of her long arms about her waist and kissed her. Mysie gave a little gasp of mingled pleasure and relief, and the burden of her thoughts slipped off in the words, “I knew you ’lotted on that oil-stove, Paula, but Etty said you would want me to go—” “I wouldn’t go without you,” Pauline burst in, vehemently, “and I’d live on bread and jelly for a week to give you that pleasure.” “There was the sausage, too; I did feel bad about that; you ought to have good hot meals after working all day.” “No more than you, Mysie.” “I’m not on my feet all day. And I did think of taking some of that seventy-five cents we have saved for the curtains, but I didn’t like to spend any without consulting you.” “It’s your own money, Mysie; but anyhow I suppose we need the curtains. Go on down; Henriette’s calling. I’ll be down directly.” But after she heard her sister’s uncertain footstep on the stair she stood frowning out of the window at the Armstrong house. “It’s hideous to think it,” she murmured, “but I don’t care—we have so much music and so little sausage! I wish I had the money for my ticket to the concert to spend on meat!”