have some solace."

Then it was explained that Miss Oswald was their governess, and that
they were very busy preparing for her birth-day. They were making a
paper-case for her, all themselves, and this hour was their only time
for doing it out of her sight in secret.

"But why do you make it yourselves?" said Kate; "one can buy such
beauties at the bazaars."

"Yes; but Mamma says a present one has taken pains to make, is worth
a great deal more than what is only bought; for trouble goes for more
than money."

"But one can make nothing but nasty tumble-to-pieces things,"
objected Kate.

"That depends," said Lady Mary, in a very odd merry voice; and the
other two, Adelaide and Grace, who were far too much alike for Kate
to guess which was which, began in a rather offended manner to assure
her that THEIR paper-case was to be anything but tumble-to-pieces.
Fanny was to bind it, and Papa had promised to paste its back and
press it.

"And Mamma drove with me to Richmond, on purpose to get leaves to
spatter," added the other sister.

Then they showed Kate--whose eyes brightened at anything approaching
to a mess--that they had a piece of coloured cardboard, on which
leaves, chiefly fern, were pinned tightly down, and that the entire