A GARRET ADVENTURE 219

“Hurrah!” cried the rest.

In an instant all hands were at work—all but Ruth,
who looked troubled, and begged Dot to “go down and
ask Mama.” She should have gone herself, for Dot was
only six years old, and a very uncertain young person in
the art of carrying messages.

Soon Dot, clambering down two sets of stairs, rushed into
her mother’s room with, “Mama, Ruth wants to know if
we can do it?”

“Do what, Dot? (Mother, do look at that child’s cheeks
—they ’re just like roses.) Do what, my pet ?”

“Why, play bank with the clay,” panted Dot.

“Oh, I suppose I must,” laughed the mother. “Tell
her yes, Dot.” As the little girl ran out of the room and
up the stairs, screaming, “Yes, yes, Mama says you can
do it,” Mrs. Brant said to Grandma, “I ought to go up, I
suppose. But they can’t do more than make a mess with
it, and they can clear it all wp to-morrow. If I were you,
Mother, I ’d never let Madame Pomfret make me a gown
again. I can improve this a little, but the cut was all
wrong in the first place.”

“You ’re too easy with those children, Eliza,” said
Grandma, quietly, adding, as Mrs. Brant hurriedly took
up her sewing again, “but they ’re such dear little things,
I don’t wonder you like to make ’em happy.”

“Good!” cried Ned, when Dot’s happy message was de-
livered. “Mother ’s splendid. I say, we must fill up all
these cracks with the clay, boys.”

“You ’re sure Mother said we could, Dot 2?”

“Course she did,” said Dot, decidedly. “She laughed, too.”