t the money in the queen's lap. Then we went away and left
her, still asleep.

A day or two after this, the "Tigress" came in, bringing the mail. We
saw her, from one of the upper porticoes, when she was just on the edge
of the horizon, and we knew her by the way she stood up high in the
water, and rolled her smoke-stack from side to side. She was the
greatest roller that ever floated, I reckon, but a jolly good ship for
all that; and we were glad enough to see her.

There were a lot of letters for us in her mail. I had nine from the boys
at home, not to count those from the family.

We had just about finished reading our letters when Corny came up to us
to the silk-cotton tree, where we were sitting, and said, in a doleful
tone:

"We've got to go home."

"Home?" we cried out together. "When?"

"To-morrow," said Corny, "on the 'Tigress.'"

All our good news and pleasant letters counted for nothing now.

"How?--why?" said I. "Why do you have to go? Isn't this something new?"

Rectus looked as if he had lost his knife, and I'm sure I had never
thought that I should care so much to hear that a girl--no relation--was
going away the next day.

"Yes, it is something new," said Corny, who certainly had been crying,
although we didn't notice it at first. "It's a horrid old lawsuit.
Father just heard of it in a letter. There's one of his houses, in New
York, that's next to a lot, and the man that owns the lot says father's
house sticks over four inches on his lot, and he has sued him for
that,--just think of it! four inches only! You couldn't do anything with
four inches of dirt if you had it; and father didn't know it, and he
isn't going to move his wall back, now that he does know it, for the
people in the house would have to cut all their carpets, or fold them
under, which is just as bad, and he says he must go right back to New
York, and, of course, we've all got to go, too, which is the worst of
it, and mother and I are just awfully put out."

"What's the good of his going," asked Rectus. "Can't he get a lawyer to
attend to it all?"

"Oh, you couldn't keep him here now," said Corny. "He's just wild to be
off. The man who sued him is a horrid person, and father says that if he
don't go right back, the next thing he'll hear will be that old Colbert
will be trying to get a foot instead of four inches."

"Old Colbert!" ejaculated Rectus, "I guess that must be my father."

If I had been Rectus, I don't think I s