emembering possibly that, after all, it was not his sister but his
daughters he was educating.

"'The rock was covered with people,'" he went on, skipping the
explanation he had intended giving to Sissy. And he read on for some
minutes without interruption, becoming more and more interested himself
in the vivid picture as it unrolled, and half declaiming it in his
enthusiasm, with a verve that accounted for Sissy's successful rendition
of "The Polish Boy" at school entertainments. "'The trumpets sounded,'"
he sang out. "'The soldiers, clashing their bucklers with their swords
and uttering the war-cry _Alala! Alala!_ advanced in--'"

"Mercy me!" exclaimed Miss Madigan, waked by his realistic shout, and
blinking her bright little eyes to accustom them to the light.

"Anne," said Madigan, tensely, "if you are not interested, you--are not
obliged to listen, of course. But it would be more--civil to withdraw
if--"

"Not interested?" she repeated, with gentle surprise, as she took up her
crocheting again. "Why, it's very interesting--most interesting; don't
you find it so, Kate?"

"'A man dressed in purple rushed out of the temple with an olive-branch
in his hand,'" Madigan began again, all the ardor gone from his voice.
"'This was Hasdrubal, the commander-in-chief, and the Robespierre of the
Reign of Terror. His--'"

"Missy Kate--want chocolate--picnic--" Wong stood open-mouthed in the
doorway. Consciousness of having interrupted the master, as well as
amazement at beholding him out of his own room after dinner, was too
much for him.

"What do you want, Wong?" demanded Madigan, harshly.

"Notting--oh, notting," murmured Wong, deprecatingly. "One picnic,
sabe, t'-malla morning."

"Irene--I mean Cecilia--Thousand devils!--Kate," stormed Madigan, in his
rage forgetting his daughter's precise appellation, "go out into the
kitchen and give your orders. If you had the least grain of common sense
you'd know that the first duty of a housekeeper is to have some system
about her work; to do things at the right time and not to interrupt the
evening's entertainment." He gulped a bit at this, though Kate's dropped
lids quickly hid the ironical gleam in her eye. "Well, why don't you
go--and stay? You might as well, or you'll forget something else and
interrupt us again."

A desire to make herself look very numerous, intelligent, and
appreciative possessed Sissy as the door closed on her big sister. She
was in the familiar fra