couldn't ask anything better than to have my little girls take pattern
after her."

"It must be awful to be sick," soliloquized Katy, after Papa was
gone. "Why, if I had to stay in bed a whole week--I should _die_, I
know I should."

Poor Katy. It seemed to her, as it does to almost all young people,
that there is nothing in the world so easy as to die, the moment
things go wrong!

This conversation with Papa made Cousin Helen doubly interesting in
Katy's eyes. "It was just like something in a book," to be in the same
house with the heroine of a love-story so sad and sweet.

The play that afternoon was much interrupted, for every few minutes
somebody had to run in and see if it wasn't four o'clock. The instant
the hour came, all six children galloped up stairs.

"I think we'll tell stories this time," said Cousin Helen.

So they told stories. Cousin Helen's were the best of all. There was one
of them about a robber, which sent delightful chills creeping down all
their backs. All but Philly. He was so excited, that he grew warlike.

"I ain't afraid of robbers," he declared, strutting up and down. "When
they come, I shall just cut them in two with my sword which Papa gave
me. They did come once. I did cut them in two--three, five, eleven of
'em. You'll see!"