Just before dinner she took it up again and being tired of unpacking, sat down at her desk to make out Tom's hieroglyphics at her leisure. But at the bottom of the first page, she gave a little cry of dismay, and ran off to Mary's room, where she found Madeline and Mary lying on the couch, reading Mary's Christmas books--she had had eighteen of them, and she declared that she simply could not begin to study until she had read them all through.