"It's no use taking _you_!" said Rhoda scornfully. "I expect you are quite out of date. You can stay here and rest, and when I come back I'll point out your errors, and send you into the lumber-room to make room for the new ones!" Then she turned her attention to the mantelpiece, on which reposed a quite extraordinary number of miniature jugs. Jugs, jugs everywhere, and nothing but jugs; blue jugs, yellow jugs, brown jugs, red jugs; Worcester jugs with delicate white figures against a background of blue; jugs worth a penny sterling at the village emporium; plain jugs, iridescent jugs; jugs with one handle, with two, with three, with none at all. Their variety was as puzzling as their number, but Rhoda gazed at them with all the pride of the collector. "Jugs"--unrivalled by postcards, stamps, or crests--had been her mania for a year on end, and the result was dear to her heart. To find a new jug to add to the collection had appeared one of the chief objects in travelling; an expedition to town had been a failure or success, according as it discovered jugs or no jugs. In her anxiety for their safety she had even volunteered to dust her own mantelpiece, and now, alas! she must leave them to the tender mercies of Mary and her assistants! It was a painful reflection, and after a moment's consideration she determined not to risk it, but to store the darlings away in some safe hiding-place until her return. No sooner said than done. Each little jug was wrapped in a separate roll of tissue paper, fitted into a drawer of the writing-table, and securely locked against invasion. The process of "putting away" thus begun extended itself indefinitely. The photographs in their various frames must be arranged and divided; nice relations and very dearest friends, to be taken to school, disagreeable or "middling" relations, and merely "dearest friends," to be laid aside in another drawer; fragile ornaments to be hidden, in case they were broken; silver and brass in case they tarnished; letters to be destroyed, to be tied up in packets, to be answered before leaving home; pieces of fancy work to be folded away, in case sacrilegious hands should dare to put them to any other use than that for which they were intended. Rhoda set to work with the energy of ten women, and worked away until the once tidy room had become a scene of wildest confusion; until sofa, table, and chairs were alike piled high with bundles. Then of a sudden her energy flagged, she grew tired and discouraged, and wished she had left the stupid old things where she had found them. It occurred to her as a brilliant inspiration that there was no possible hurry, and that sitting under the trees reading a book, and drinking lemon squash, was a much more agreeable method of spending a hot summer's day than working like a charwoman. She carried her latest book into the garden forthwith, ordered the "squash," and spent an hour of contented idleness before lunch.