And I’d like to have a large house and a splendiferous garden, and then you could all come and live with me, and we would play in the garden, and Dorry should have turkey five times a day if he liked. And we’d have a machine to darn the stockings, and another machine to put the bureau drawers in order, and we’d never sew or knit garters, or do anything we didn’t want to. That’s what I’d like to be. But now I’ll tell you what I mean to do.”

“Isn’t it the same thing?” asked Cecy.

“Oh, no!” replied Katy, “quite different; for you see I mean to do something grand. I don’t know what, yet; but when I’m grown up I shall find out.” (Poor Katy always said “when I’m grown up,” forgetting how very much she had grown already.) “Perhaps,” she went on, “it will be rowing out in boats, and saving peoples’ lives, like that girl in the book. Or perhaps I shall go and nurse in the hospital, like Miss Nightingale. Or else I’ll head a crusade and ride on a white horse, with armor and a helmet on my head, and carry a sacred flag. Or if I don’t do that, I’ll paint pictures, or sing, or scalp—sculp,—what is it? you know—make figures in marble. Anyhow it shall be something. And when Aunt Izzie sees it, and reads about me in the newspapers she will say, ‘The dear child! I always knew she would turn out an ornament to the family.’ People very often say, afterward, that they ‘always knew,’ ” concluded Katy sagaciously.

“Oh, Katy! how beautiful it will be!” said Clover, clasping her hands. Clover believed in Katy as she did in the Bible.

“I don’t believe the newspapers would be so silly as to print things about you, Katy Carr,” put in Elsie, vindictively.

“Yes they will!” said Clover; and gave Elsie a push.

By and by John and Dorry trotted away on mysterious errands of their own.

“Wasn’t Dorry funny with his turkey?” remarked Cecy; and they all laughed again.