with her fingers buried in her curls.

Molly surveyed her in pity; then she rose to meet the emergency
like a heroine.

"I'm not going to go home one single step, Polly," she declared.
"I'll stay here and help you through with it."

"But you'll starve, Molly," remonstrated her hostess tearfully.

"Nonsense!" responded Molly. "Now you just sit down and don't go
rushing round like this, and we'll talk the matter over, and take
an account of stock."

This was encouraging, and Polly felt her spirits coming up again.

"Well?" she asked, as she seated herself on the sofa once more.

"In the first place," said Molly, with a calmness born of
inexperience, "we'll tell her to go. I have heard mamma say, often
and often, that it's easier to do the work yourself than to have a
girl around that's restless and wanting to be off all the time."

There was something so impressive in Molly's manner, as she
delivered herself of this sentiment, that Polly gazed at her with
a new respect. She had never dreamed that her friend knew so much
about housekeeping.

"And so," Molly went on, "we'll just get rid of her and do the
work ourselves. I've always been dying to try it, and this is a