"Mary," she cried, suddenly and sharply--"_Mary!_" "Mercy! Well, what is it, my dear? Is the house afire, or anything?" "Why don't you talk, and not sit there as still as a post? You haven't said a word for half an hour." "Why, so I haven't,--or you either, for that matter. I thought we were sitting here enjoying the calm. Doesn't it look too lovely and fixed-up for anything, Bess? Seems like Sunday. _Don't_ you wish somebody would call before we get stirred up again?" "There's time enough. We sha'n't get stirred up again for a week," sighed the Mother. She seemed suddenly to remember, as a new thing, that weeks held seven days apiece; days, twenty-four hours. The little old table at school repeated itself to her mind. Then she remembered how the Boy said it. She saw him toeing the stripe in the carpet before her; she heard his high sweet sing-song: "Sixty sec-unds make a min-it. Sixty min-its make a nour. Sixty hours make--no; I mean twenty-four hours--make a d-a-a-y." That was the way the Boy said it--God bless the Boy! The Mother got up abruptly. "I think I will go up and call on William," she said, unsteadily. The Patient Aunt nodded gravely. "But he doesn't like to be interrupted, you know," she reminded, thinking of the Boy's interruptions. Up-stairs, the Father said "Come in," with remarkable alacrity. He looked up from his manuscripts and welcomed her. The sheets, tossed untidily about the table were mostly blank ones. "Well, dear?" the little Mother said, with a question in her voice. "Not at all;--_bad_," he answered, gloomily. "I haven't written a word yet, Bess. At this rate, how soon will my new book be out? It's so confoundedly still--" "Yes, dear, I know," the Mother said, hastily. Then they both gazed out of the window, and saw the Boy's little, rough-coated, ugly dog moping under the Boy's best-beloved tree. The Boy had pleaded hard to be allowed to take the dog on the journey. They both remembered that now. "He's lonesome," murmured the Mother, but she meant that they two were. And they had thought it would be such a rest and relief! But then, you remember, the Boy had never been away before, and he was only ten. So one day and one more after it dragged by. Two from seven leaves five. The Mother secretly despaired. The second night, after the others were asleep, she stole around the house and strewed the Boy's things about in all the rooms; but she could not make them look at ease. Nevertheless, she let them lie, and, oddly enough, no one appeared to see them next morning. All the family made fine pretence of being cheerful, and spoke often of the quietude and peace--how restful it was; how they had known beforehand that it would be so, without the whooping, whistling, tramping, slamming Boy. "So relieving to the nerves," the Patient Aunt said. "So soothing," murmured the Mother, sadly.