ONLY A ROSE 291

were really going, and we sobbing ones (after a whispered
hint from Miss Ellis) were wishing them “a very hap-ap-
py time,” we felt that nothing more dreadful had ever
happened to three poor, forsaken children.

As soon as the carriage rolled away, and Miss Ellis
closed the street door, Marie just leaned her back against
it and cried; I sat down on the mat, forgetting my clean
white dress, and sobbed aloud; and little Gerty cried be-
cause Marie and I did. I do believe, if some fairy had
made my new wax doll walk down-stairs at that moment,
and take a seat on my lap, I should n’t have noticed it
much; or if the sugar-barrel had come bumping up the
kitchen stairs, and rolled past me, spilling sugar all the
way, I really could not have taken any for at least two
minutes, I was so wretched.

Seven days! Only to think of it! Why, a day appeared
nearly as long to me then as a month does now, and a week
without Mother seemed too cruel to think of—almost as
dreary as going through a dark tunnel fifty miles long, I
had yet to learn that to sit down and cry over such a trouble
was one of the silliest things in the world. Miss Ellis
told us so then, and tried to comfort us, but we hardly
heeded her. Indeed, we might have sobbed there for an
hour longer, if a well-known voice had not called us, from
the foot of the kitchen stairs :

“Doan be cryin’ dar, chillen! Come down ter ole Lizer.
I’m a-gwine ter make cookies !”

Those words sent a ray of bright sunshine through the
lonely hall, I can tell you! Marie gave her eyes one or two
final rubs with her apron; Gerty clapped her hands and