"As much as your mother?"

"Very near as much."

"As much as Amelia?"

"Every bit as much."

"How much do you think Jenny loves me?"

"Ever so much."

"No. Jenny loves Roddy best; then Mark; then Dank; then Mamma; then Papa;
then me. That isn't ever so much."

Catty was vexed. "You didn't oughter go measuring people's love, Miss
Mary."

Still, that was what you did do. With Catty and Jenny you could measure
till you knew exactly where you were.

Mamma was different.

You knew _when_ she loved you. You could almost count the times: the time
when Papa frightened you; the time when you cut your forehead; the time
the lamb died; all the whooping-cough and chicken-pox times, and when
Meta, the wax doll, fell off the schoolroom table and broke her head; and
when Mark went away to school. Or when you were good and said every word
of your lessons right; when you watched Mamma working in the garden,
planting and transplanting the flowers with her clever hands; and when