“Just as we did in school after recess,” said Marjorie.

“Precisely.  Change of employment is the best tonic.”

Our luncheon over, and our rooms swept, rugs shaken, stairs and passages thoroughly brushed and wiped, we polished the windows with cloths dipped in ammonia water and wrung out, and followed them by a dry rubbing with soft linen cloths.  Then it was time to restore the furniture to its place, and bring out the ornaments again from their seclusion.

Now we saw what an advantage we had gained in having prepared these before we began the campaign.  In a very little while the work was done and the house settled, and so spotless and speckless we felt sure it would keep clean for weeks.

Mother’s way is to use a patent sweeper daily in rooms which are occupied for sewing and other work, and she says that she does not find it necessary to give her rooms more than a light sweeping oftener than once in six weeks.  Of course it would be different if we had a large family.

Paint should be wiped, door-knobs polished, and a touch of the duster given to everything on these sweeping days.

The Clover Leaves voted that feather-dusters, as a rule, were a delusion.  One often sees a girl, who looks very complacent as she flirts a feather-duster over a parlor, displacing the dust so that it may settle somewhere else.  All dusted articles should be wiped off, and the dust itself gotten rid of, by taking it out of the house, and leaving it no chance to get back on that day at least.

When I reached home in time for our one o’clock dinner, I found Great-aunt Jessamine and grandmamma both waiting for me, and the former, who was a jolly little old lady, was quite delighted over the Bloomdale girls and their housekeeping.

“All is,” she said, “will those Downings do as well when there are no other girls to make them think the work is play?”

“Oh!” answered grandmamma, “I never trouble my head about what folks will do in the future.  I have enough to do looking after what they do in the present.  Alice here gets along very well all by herself a great part of the time.  By-the-way, child, did Aunt Hetty give thee mother’s letter?”

I rushed off to get my treasure.  It would soon be the blessed day when I might expect a letter telling me when my father and mother would be at home again.

CHAPTER V.

A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING.

Just as I began to be a wee little bit tired of housework, and to feel that I would like nothing so much as a day with my birds, my fancy-work, and a charming story-book, what should happen but that grandmamma’s headache and Aunt Hetty’s “misery in her bones” should both come at once.

Tap, tap, tap on the floor above my head in the early dawn came grandmamma’s ebony stick.

Veva Fay and Marjorie Downing were both spending the night with me.  Veva had slept on the wide, old-fashioned lounge in the corner, and Marjorie in the broad couch with me, and we had all talked till it was very late, as girls always do when they sleep in one room, unless, of course, they are sisters, or at school, and used to it.