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 I want to finish this job to-day," answered Rose, with a long-handled paint-brush in her hand, and a great pair of shears at her side.

"You are always so busy! What is it now? Let me help: I can talk faster when I'm doing something," which seemed hardly possible; for Kitty's tongue went like a mill-clapper at all hours.

"Making picture-books for my sick babies at the hospital. Pretty work, isn't it? You cut out, and I'll paste them on these squares of gay cambric: then we just tie up a few pages with a ribbon; and there is a nice, light, durable book for the poor dears to look at as they lie in their little beds."

"A capital idea. Do you go there often? How ever do you find the time for such things?" asked Kitty, busily cutting from a big sheet the touching picture of a parent bird with a red head and a blue tail, offering what looked like a small boa-constrictor to one of its nestlings; a fat young squab with a green head, yellow body, and no tail at all.

"I have plenty of time now I don't go out so much; for a party uses up two days generally,—one to prepare for it, and one to get over it, you know."

"People think it is so odd of you to give up society all of a sudden. They say you have 'turned pious,' and it is owing to your peculiar bringing up. I always take your part, and say it is a pity other girls haven't as sensible an education; for I don't know one who is as satisfactory on the whole as you are."