"And you ought to see Amy in that pink and white dress. She's just too sweet for anything!"

"All right, daughter. I agree to give your little friend the frock if her mother is willing."

"I just made Mrs. Carringford agree," said Janice, bobbing her head earnestly. "They are awfully proud folks."

"With a proper pride, perhaps."

"I guess so. They are real nice anyway--even if Gummy does wear patched pants."

"And does he?" asked daddy, seriously. "Perhaps we had better look through my Wardrobe in his behest."

"But, Daddy! he can't wear your clothes. He'd be lost in them,"

Janice giggled.

"True. But his mother may know how to cut the garments down and make them over for the boy? You ask her, Janice. I will lay out a couple of suits that I will never be able to wear again."

And so they forgot their own troubles, for the time being, in seeking to relieve those of some other people.

CHAPTER XI. MRS. WATKINS

Although it was probable that most of the Day's neighbors felt more or less curiosity, if not interest, in their domestic misfortunes, it was only Miss Peckham who seemed to keep really close observation, in season and out, of all that went on in and about the Day house.

Janice could have wished that the spinster would give more of her attention to her cats and Ambrose, the parrot, and less to neighborhood affairs. For the child knew that not even a peddler came to the door that the sharp-visaged woman behind her bowed blinds did watch to see what Janice did.

"She watches every move I make, Daddy," complained the girl one day. "I don't see why she cares who comes to see me. She's the meanest thing--"

"Now, Janice, dear!"

"I don't care, Daddy, just this once! Why, this afternoon three of the girls were here, and after they left Miss Peckham called me over to the fence and asked me when the Beemans were going to Canada.

"The Beemans talk of going there before long, but are not certain about it; and Annette told the rest of us girls all about it as a great secret. Miss Peckham

deliberately listened at her window, and then, because she couldn't hear all we said, she tried to make me tell her the whole story. Now, isn't that mean?"

"Oh, well, Janice--"

"You wouldn't listen like that, Daddy Day, and you wouldn't let me, so there!"

"Maybe not, Janice. But then, you know, we do many things that Miss Peckham does not approve of--many things that she would not think of doing."

"Now, Daddy, you are joking! You know you are!"

"Maybe so--half way. But then we are responsible for ourselves, and not for Miss Peckham. But I am sorry, daughter, that she troubles you. Perhaps," he added more lightly, "we shall get things on a more satisfactory basis here before long, and then Miss Peckham will not think it necessary to look after us so much."

"You know better than that, Daddy Day. Miss Peckham will look after us till we are hundreds of years old," answered Janice.

But now she spoke with a smile on her lips.

The disappointment of the coming and going of Bridget Burns made both father and daughter shrink from trying another houseworker unless she appeared more than ordinarily promising. So for a day or two daddy went personally to the agencies and looked the prospective workers over. His reports to Janice were not hopeful.

"Oh, dear me, Daddy!" Janice sighed, "I do wish I could do it all. Maybe I ought only to go to school part time--"

"No, my dear. We will scrabble along as best we can. You must not neglect the studies."

"At any rate," she exclaimed, "it will soon be vacation time. I can do ever so much more in the house then."

"Nor do I believe that is a good plan," her father said, shaking his head. "The best thing that could happen to you would be for you to go away for a change. I have a good mind to send you back East. Your Aunt Almira--"

"Oh, Daddy! Never! You don't mean it?" cried the girl.

"Why, you'll like your Aunt Almira. Of course, Jase Day is not such an up-and-coming chap as one might wish; but he is a good sort, at that. And there is your cousin, Marty."

"But I don't know any of them," sighed Janice. "And I don't want to leave you."

"But if we cannot get any help--"

"I'll get along. What would you do in this house alone if I went away?" she demanded.

"I'd shut it up and go down to the Laurel House to board."

"Oh, that's awful!"

"No. I get my lunch there now. It's not very bad," said Broxton Day, smiling.

"I mean it's awful to think of shutting up our home for the summer. You haven't got to go away to Mexico, have you, Daddy?"

she queried with sudden suspicion.

"Well, my dear, it may be necessary," he confessed.

"And you'd send me away to Vermont while you were gone?"

"I don't know what else to do--if the necessity arises. Jase Day is my half-brother--the only living relative I have. Your mother's people are all scattered. I wouldn't know what else to do with you, my dear."

"Mercy!" she sighed, winking back the tears, "it sounds as though I--I were what you call a 'liability' in your bank business.

Isn't that it? Why, Daddy! I want to be an 'a.s.set,' not a 'liability.'"

"Bless you, my dear, you are! A great, big a.s.set!" he laughed.

"But you must not neglect the necessary preparation for life which your studies give you. Nor must I let you overwork. Have patience--and hope. Perhaps we shall be able to find a really good housekeeper, after all."

When, on Wednesday afternoons Janice came home from school, she saw Miss Peckham beckoning to her from her front porch, the girl had no suspicion that the maiden lady was about to interfere in her and daddy's affairs. No, indeed!

"Now I wonder what she wants!" murmured Janice, going reluctantly toward the Peckham house. "And she's got company, too."

The spinster was sitting on her porch behind the honeysuckle vines, with her sewing table and the big parrot, Ambrose, chained to his perch beside her. There was, too, a second woman on the porch.

"Good afternoon, Miss Peckham," Janice said, swinging her books as she came up the walk from Miss Peckham's gate. "h.e.l.lo, Polly!"