owers and trees, and from the metal itself was radiated the
soft light which flooded the room. All the furniture was made of the
same glorious metal, and Scraps asked what it was.

"That's radium," answered the Chief. "We Horners spend all our time
digging radium from the mines under this mountain, and we use it to
decorate our homes and make them pretty and cosy. It is a medicine, too,
and no one can ever be sick who lives near radium."

"Have you plenty of it?" asked the Patchwork Girl.

"More than we can use. All the houses in this city are decorated with
it, just the same as mine is."

"Why don't you use it on your streets, then, and the outside of your
houses, to make them as pretty as they are within?" she inquired.

"Outside? Who cares for the outside of anything?" asked the Chief. "We
Horners don't live on the outside of our homes; we live inside. Many
people are like those stupid Hoppers, who love to make an outside show.
I suppose you strangers thought their city more beautiful than ours,
because you judged from appearances and they have handsome marble houses
and marble streets; but if you entered one of their stiff dwellings you
would find it bare and uncomfortable, as all their show is on the
outside. They have an idea that what is not seen by others is not
important, but with us the rooms we live in are our chief delight and
care, and we pay no attention to outside show."

"Seems to me," said Scraps, musingly, "it would be better to make it all
pretty--inside and out."

"Seems? Why, you're all seams, my girl!" said the Chief; and then he
laughed heartily at his latest joke and a chorus of small voices echoed
the chorus with "tee-hee-hee! ha, ha!"

Scraps turned around and found a row of girls seated in radium chairs
ranged along one wall of the room. There were nineteen of them, by
actual count, and they were of all sizes from a tiny child to one almost
a grown woman. All were neatly dressed in spotless white robes and had
brown skins, horns on their foreheads and three-colored hair.

"These," said the Chief, "are my sweet daughters. My dears, I introduce
to you Miss Scraps Patchwork, a lady who is traveling in foreign parts
to increase her store of wisdom."

The nineteen Horner girls all arose and made a polite courtesy, after
which they resumed their seats and rearranged their robes properly.

"Why do they sit so still, and all in a row?" asked Scraps.

"Because it is ladylike and proper," r