[Illustration: "She was having the measles on the back shelf of the
closet, you know."]

"If you don't wake me up too early. My stories are always sleepy
till seven o'clock. Let us see what Ellen has packed in that bag,
and then I'll give you some drawers of your own, and we will put the
things away."

The bag was full of neat little frocks and underclothes stuffed hastily
in all together. Katy took them out, smoothing the folds, and crimping
the tumbled ruffles with her fingers. As she lifted the last skirt, Amy,
with a cry of joy, pounced on something that lay beneath it.

"It is Maria Matilda," she said, "I'm glad of that. I thought Ellen
would forget her, and the poor child wouldn't know what to do with me
and her little sister not coming to see her for so long. She was having
the measles on the back shelf of the closet, you know, and nobody would
have heard her if she had cried ever so loud."

"What a pretty face she has!" said Katy, taking the doll out of
Amy's hands.

"Yes, but not so pretty as Mabel. Miss Upham says that Mabel is the
prettiest child she ever saw. Look, Miss Clover," lifting the other doll
from the table where she had laid it; "hasn't she got _sweet_ eyes?
She's older than Maria Matilda, and she knows a great deal more. She's
begun on French verbs!"

"Not really! Which ones?"