glass of milk. As Irene
ran in to take her portion she heard a scrimmage going on at the other
end of the room. Several small girls were quarreling loudly, and above
the noise came Desiree's piping, high-pitched voice:

"I haven't had a biscuit for days and it isn't fair."

"What's all this about?" asked Irene, striding into the crowd just in
time to see Mabel and another member of the Transition pass, laughing,
through the lower door.

There was a babel in reply.

"Those big girls come and grab our biscuits!"

"It's a shame of them!"

"There ought to be three apiece!"

"And there never are!"

"It's something if you get two!"

"Nancy's taken both mine!"

"Honest injun, I haven't!"

"I tell you I'm famished!"

"Help! Don't all shout at once," decreed Irene. "Let's have a biscuit
parade. Each hold out what she's got. Here, Audley, hand one of yours
over to Francie. Effie, break that one in half and share with Chris.
Desiree, you may have mine this morning, but this business mustn't
happen again. I've no time to stop now, but I'll inquire into this, you
bet!"

Leaving an only partially satisfied group of small girls behind her
Irene sped to her tryst in the garden. She took a short cut, and ran
through the orange grove, where the half-ripe oranges were beginning to
turn yellow on the trees, then shamelessly jumping over a flower border
of stocks and primulas, crossed under the rose-pergola, turned down a
creeper-covered side alley, and found herself in a neglected portion of
the grounds. Here there was a very dilapidated little arbor, built sixty
or seventy years ago when the Villa Camellia had been owned by an
Italian count with a weakness for the fine arts. The roof leaked, and a
riot of jessamine almost hid the door; the window-sill had fallen, and
the floor was a mass of dead leaves. The plastered walls were painted
with frescoes--faded and moldy now--of a country chateau with cypress
trees, and three ladies in big plumed hats riding on white horses, and a
gentleman in shooting costume and tall boots, who wore side whiskers,
and carried a gun, and had four hunting dogs standing in a row behind
him. All these were rather stiff and badly painted, yet gave an air of
neglected grandeur to the grotto. There were marble seats, and a rickety
marble table, and a little broken statue of Cupid in the corner, and the
floor under the rubbish was of blue glazed tiles, so that the building,
though fallen on evil da