CHAPTER VII.
HOUSE-KEEPING.
One of the greatest pleasures which Mary Bell enjoyed, in her visits at Mary Erskine's at this period, was to assist in the house-keeping.
She was particularly pleased with being allowed to help in getting breakfast or tea, and in setting the table.
She rose accordingly very early on the morning after her arrival there from the woods, as described in the last chapter, and put on the working-dress which Mary Erskine had made for her, and which was always kept at the farm.

This was not the working-dress which was described in a preceding chapter as the one which Mary Bell used to play in, when out among the stumps.

Her playing among the stumps was two or three years before the period which we are now describing.
During those two or three years, Mary Bell had wholly outgrown her first working-dress, and her mind had become improved and enlarged, and her tastes matured more rapidly even than her body had grown.
She now no longer took any pleasure in dabbling in the brook, or planting potatoes in the sand,--or in heating sham ovens in stumps and hollow trees.

She had begun to like realities.

To bake a real cake for breakfast or tea, to set a real table with real cups and saucers, for a real and useful purpose, or to assist Mary Erskine in the care of the children, or in making the morning arrangements in the room, gave her more pleasure than any species of child's play could possibly do.