"Where's _my_ girl?"

"Oh, _there_, Mr. Stevens!" exclaimed Mrs. Gray, wiping her eyes, and
settling her hair, "it was downright careless of me not to tell you right
away, but I was so excited over Austin that I forgot all about it for a
minute; of course, it's a dreadful disappointment to you, but it just
couldn't seem to be helped. Frank--my son-in-law, you know, that lives in
White Water--telephoned down this morning that the trained nurse had
left, an' little Elsie was ailin', an' the hired girl so green, an'
nothin' would do but that Sylvia must traipse up there to help Ruth
before I could say 'Jack Robinson.'"

"What do you mean?" thundered Uncle Mat and Austin in the same breath; so
Mrs. Gray tried again.

"Why, Ruth had a new baby a month ago, another little girl, an' the
dearest child! They're all comin' home to-morrow, sure's the world, an'
you'll see her then--they've named her Mary, for me, an' of course I'm
real pleased. But as I was sayin'--it did seem as if some one had got to
take hold an' help them get straightened out if they was goin' to put it
through, an' of course, there's no one like Sylvia for jobs like that.
Land! I don't know how we ever got along before she come! Anyway, she's
up there now. Rode up with Hiram on the Rural Free Delivery--he was
tickled most to death. She left her love, an' said maybe one of the boys
would take the pair an' her big double sleigh, an' start up to get 'em
all in real good season to-morrow mornin'."

"That means me, of course," said Thomas importantly.

"Of course," echoed both his brothers, quite unanimously.