"Ma couldn't spare much milk, so we must mix water with it. Strong tea
isn't good for children, she says." And Bab contentedly surveyed the
gill of skim-milk which was to satisfy the thirst of the company.

"While the tea draws and the cake cools, let's sit down and rest; I'm so
tired!" sighed Betty, dropping down on the door-step and stretching out
the stout little legs which had been on the go all day; for Saturday had
its tasks as well as its fun, and much business had preceded this
unusual pleasure. Bab went and sat beside her, looking idly down the
walk toward the gate, where a fine cobweb shone in the afternoon sun.

"Ma says she is going over the house in a day or two, now it is warm and
dry after the storm, and we may go with her. You know she wouldn't take
us in the fall, cause we had whooping-cough, and it was damp there. Now
we shall see all the nice things; won't it be fun?" observed Bab, after
a pause.

"Yes, indeed! Ma says there's lots of books in one room, and I can look
at 'em while she goes round. May be I'll have time to read some, and
then I can tell you," answered Betty, who dearly loved stories, and
seldom got any new ones.

"I'd rather see the old spinning-wheel up garret, and the big pictures,
and the queer clothes in the blue chest. It makes me mad to have them
all shut up there, when we might have such fun with them. I'd just like
to bang that old door down!" And Bab twisted round to give it a thump
with her boots. "You needn't laugh; you know you'd like it as much as
me," she added, twisting back again, rather ashamed of her impatience.

"I didn't laugh."