“They Mig up their parlors with upholstery, and put rose-colored paper on their walls, and call them their houses; and shut the little round awfulness and goodness out!  We’ve all been doing it!  And there’s no place left for what might come in.”

Mrs. Scherman broke the hush that followed what Miss Hapsie said.  Not hastily, or impertinently; but when it seemed as if it might be a little hard to come down into the picture-books and the pleasant easiness again.

“Let’s make a Noah’s Ark picture-book,—­you and I,” she said to Desire.  “Give us all your animals,—­there’s a whole Natural History full over there, all painted with splendid daubs of colors; the children did that, I know, when they were children.  Come; we’ll have everything in, from an elephant to a bumble-bee!”

“We did not mean to use those, Mrs. Scherman,” said Desire.  “We did not think they were good enough.  They are so daubed up.”

“They’re perfectly beautiful.  Exactly what the young ones will like.  Just divide round, and help.  We’ll wind up with the most wonderful book of all; the book they’ll all cry for, and that will have to be given always, directly after the Castor Oil.”

It took them more than an hour to do that, all working hard; and a wonderful thing it was truly, when it was done.  Mrs. Scherman and Desire Ledwith directed all the putting together, and the grouping was something astonishing.

There were men and women,—­the Knowers, Sin called them; she said that was what she always thought the old gentleman’s name was, in the days when she first heard of him, because he knew so much; and in the backgrounds of the same sheets were their country cousins, the orangs, and the little apes.  Then came the elephants, and the camels, and the whales; “for why shouldn’t the fishes be put in, since they must all have been swimming round sociably, if they weren’t inside; and why shouldn’t the big people be all kept together properly?”

There were happy families of dogs and cats and lions and snakes and little humming-birds; and in the last part were all manner of bugs, down to the little lady-bugs in blazes of red and gold, and the gray fleas and mosquitoes which Sin improvised with pen and ink, in a swarm at the end.

“And after that, I don’t believe they wanted any more,” she said; and handed over the parts to Miss Craydocke to be tied together.  For this volume had had to be made in many folds, and Mrs. Ripwinkley’s blue ribbon would by no means stretch over the back.

And by that time it was eleven o’clock, and they had worked four hours.  They all jumped up in a great hurry then, and began to say good-by.

“This must not be the last we are to have of you, Miss Holabird,” said Mrs. Ripwinkley, laying Rosamond’s shawl across her shoulders.

“Of course not,” said Mrs Scherman, “when you are all coming to our house to tea to-morrow night.”