And while Mrs. Wilson was thus advising and entreating her eldest daughter to do her duty in such small household matters, Norma was busy tidying up her dainty room or sewing on her summer frocks, mending lace, ribbons, or putting on buttons and hooks and eyes.  She was such a cheerfully busy little miss that Gracie’s laziness was the more pronounced by contrast with her industry.

* * * * *

One afternoon, while Gracie was sitting idly in the hammock which swung in the broad, awning-covered porch, the phone bell rang and Norma answered it.  The message which reached her ear made her smile very happily, and she answered, “Oh, yes, indeed, we shall be delighted to go, and thank you for both of us ever and ever so much.  What time shall we be ready—­at four o’clock this afternoon?  All right.  And we shall prepare some luncheon?  Yes, all right, we’ll be most happy to do so.  Good-bye.”

Then to the porch ran Norma, crying to Gracie, excitedly:  “Oh, sister, Mrs. Jackson has invited us—­you and me—­to go with her and Flora and Tommy for a long automobile ride.  We are to stop on the beach—­down at Blake Island—­and have a picnic supper by moonlight.  We’ll return home about nine o’clock.  Won’t that be splendid?  I know mamma will be so happy to have us go, so I accepted for both of us.  Mamma won’t be home for over an hour.  And we are to start at four.  It is now two o’clock.  We’ll have to be stirring if we are ready when Mrs. Jackson calls.  And she must not be kept waiting.”

[Illustration:  “We are invited for a long automobile ride.”]

“Are we to carry luncheon?” asked Gracie, lazily, not making any sign of getting out of the hammock.

“Yes.  Mrs. Jackson said we’d carry luncheon.  She said she would take sandwiches, cookies, and jelly.  We can supply something else.  Suppose we have some boiled eggs.  And I’ll run to our favorite baker’s and get a nice cake—­one of those delicious white ones, you know.  Won’t it be splendid?”

“What shall you wear?” asked Gracie, now bestirring herself a bit.

“My pink lawn, I guess,” replied Norma.  “But I shall have to hurry, for the eggs must be boiled at once, so as to give them time to get cold and solid in the ice box.  Otherwise, they wouldn’t be fit for the lunch basket.”

And away ran busy Norma to the kitchen to put the eggs to boil.

Within a short time Norma had the eggs nicely boiled and cooling in the ice box while she was getting her frock, shoes, hat, and other accessories to her afternoon attire, laid out all ready to wear.

But Gracie was not quite so energetic.  She had left the hammock and gone to her own room to look over her frocks to see which one might be fit to wear.  A blue dimity was selected as being in the best wearing condition, but in looking it over she found a rent in the skirt and two buttons gone.  “Oh, just my luck,” she declared petulantly.  “I never have a frock in shape to put right on.  I do believe I’ll ask mamma—­if she has returned—­to sew on the buttons and mend the rent.  Let me see—­the lace is all torn in places on my white lawn.  The buttons are off my checked batiste.  Yes, this blue dimity will be the best.”  So taking it in her arms, she went down stairs to the sitting room.