"Ray! Miriam!"

Miriam stirred and burrowed deeper into her pillow, her hair darkly
spread against the white in a luxury of confusion.

"Girls!"

"What, mamma?"

"Five o'clock, Miriam, and we ain't got the trunks strapped yet, or that
seasick medicine from Mrs. Berkovitz."

"For Heaven's sake, mamma, the boat don't sail till three o'clock this
afternoon! There's plenty time. Go back to bed awhile, mamma."

"When such a trip I got before me as twelve days on water, I don't lay
me in bed until the last minute. Ray, get up and help mamma. In a minute
the milkman comes, and I want you should tell him we don't take no more
for ten weeks. Get up, Ray, and help mamma see that all the windows is
locked tight."

"M-m-m-m."

"Miriam, get up! I want you should throw this quilt from your bed over
the brass table in the parlor so it don't get rust. Miriam, didn't you
say yourself last night you must get up early? Always only at night my
children got mouths about how early they get up."

From the soft mound of her couch Miriam rose to the dawn with the
beautiful gesture of tossing backward her black hair. Sleep trembled on