"I do hate sums!" he said, with a sigh, regarding the hideous
smudges of thumbs and tears that scored the page. "I shall never
understand anything about them."

"I'll help you," said Mary, who was greatly excited at the thought
of a governess. "We'll do them together."

"No we won't," said Jeremy, who hated to be dependent.

"I'll learn it myself--if only the paper didn't get dirty so
quickly."

"Mother says," remarked Helen, "that she's had a very hard life, and
no one's ever been kind to her. 'She wants affection,' Mother says."

"I'll give her my napkin-ring that you gave me last Christmas,
Mary," said Jeremy. "You don't mind, do you? It's all dirty now. I
hope Hamlet won't bark at her."

Hamlet was worrying Mary's pincushion at the moment, holding it
between his paws, his body stretched out in quivering excitement,
his short, "snappy" tail, as Uncle Samuel called it, standing up
straight in air. He stopped for an instant when he heard his name,
and shook one ear.

"Mother says," continued Helen, "that she lived with a brother who
never gave her enough to eat."

Jeremy opened his eyes. This seemed to him a horrible thing.