"Why _don't_ you find something to do and then do it?" said Mrs. Merrill
after Mary Jane had made pictures on the window pane and rummaged through
the mending basket and poked her finger into the canary's cage and fingered
the forbidden little green balls on the ends of the fern leaves. "Little
girls can't expect to have a good time when they do all the things they
are not allowed to do. Go and play with Marie Georgiannamore, you haven't
played with her since Aunt Effie came."

"Will you play too?" asked Mary Jane.

"Not for a while yet, dear," replied mother, "because this is wash morning
and I have a new laundress to look after. Didn't you see her come around
the house when we were at breakfast? I have to go downstairs and show her
how we like our clothes washed and starched. Don't you want to go along?"

"Oh, yes, mother, I do!" cried Mary Jane happily. "I want to learn to wash,
too." Then she thought a minute. "But I believe I'd better take Marie
Georgiannamore along too--she's lonesome."

"I'm sure she is," answered Mrs. Merrill. "You run along and get her and
then we'll go to the laundry."

Mary Jane hurried upstairs for her big doll, but, though she searched every
place that a big doll ought to be, not a sign of Marie Georgiannamore could
she see.

"Mother!" called Mary Jane over the front stair railing, "Marie
Georgiannamore's lost!"