she put on greater severity with the workmen. The boy came up and
caught her skirt. "What?" she said, bending over. "No, certainly not.
I haven't time to attend to you. Go off and play. Don't I tell you no?
Well, there, then! Will you get that trunk out where I can open it?
That small one there," she said to one of the men, while the other
rested for both. She stooped to unlock the trunk and flung up the lid.
"Now if you bother me any more I will surely--" But she lost herself
short of the threat and began again to seek counsel and issue orders.

The boy fell upon the things in the trunk, which were the things of a
boy, as those in Tata's trunk were the things of a girl, and to run
with them, one after another, to Tata and to pile them in gift on the
floor beside her trunk. He did not stop running back and forth as fast
as his short, fat legs could carry him till he had reached the bottom
of his box, chattering constantly and taking no note of the effect
with Tata. Then, as she made no response whatever to his munificence,
he began to be abashed and to look pathetically from her to her
father.

"Oh, really, young man," Forsyth said, "we can't let you impoverish
yourself at this rate. What have you said to your benefactor, Tata?
What are you going to give _him_?"

The children did not understand his large words, but they knew he was
affectionately mocking them.

"Ambrose," Mrs. Forsyth said, "you mustn't let him."

"I'm trying to think how to hinder him, but it's rather late," Forsyth
answered, and then the boy's mother joined in.

"Indeed, indeed, if you can, it's more than I can. You're just
worrying the little girl," she said to the boy.

"Oh no, he isn't, dear little soul," Mrs. Forsyth said, leaving her
chair and going up to the two children. She took the boy's hand in
hers. "What a kind boy! But you know my little girl mustn't take all
your playthings. If you'll give her _one_ she'll give _you_ one, and
that will be enough. You can both play with them all for the present."
She referred her suggestion to the boy's mother, and the two ladies
met at the invisible line dividing the five-dollar room from the
twenty-dollar room.

"Oh yes, indeed," the Mid-Westerner said, willing to meet the
New-Yorker half-way. "You're taking things out, I see. I hardly know
which is the worst: taking out or putting in."

"Well, we are just completing the experience," Mrs. Forsyth said. "I
shall be able to say better how I fe