h, her lips set, her eyes unseeing.

"She's got 'em," Sissy whispered to Split.

"Yep, that's the sulks all right," Split nodded.

"This is Kate." Miss Madigan, brave in her new purple gown with the lace
collar at her throat, shot a reproachful glance at the unadorned young
lady of the house. "Your cousin, Miles Morgan, Kate."

"Howd' ye do?" Kate said coldly, ignoring his outstretched hand and
passing on to her seat, where she began busily to serve the butter.

The savior of the family looked after her, interested. Though guilty of
every count in Sissy's indictment, he was not accustomed to being
overlooked by such very young ladies.

"And this is Irene," said Miss Madigan, a tremor in her voice; she, too,
knew now that Kate "had 'em." "This one is Cecilia; the twins, Bessie
and Florence; and Frances, the baby."

The savior of the family glanced along the line of five blank faces, and
felt the perfunctory touch of five small, slippery hands with nothing
more human about their clasp than the childish masks above them.

"I say, how do you tell one another apart?" he asked, with a sudden
gleam in his eye, as they passed him and slid into their places.

A dozen pitying eyes looked coldly at him; half a dozen small mouths
curved disdainfully. His remark seemed to make them more than ever like
mechanisms--hostile ones.

Miss Madigan dropped the soup-ladle in her confusion. To that
experienced lady there was something ominous about so unbroken a union
of Madigans; she remembered with sorrow the few times any subject had
found them unanimous.

But Madigan came in just then, took his seat at the head, looked
mechanically for the banished dog and the cat, and Dusie, chirping
madly in her cage to attract his attention to the fact of her cruel and
unusual imprisonment. He cleared his throat and took up the carver--and
immediately Miles Morgan was conscious of an unbending of the small
Madigans--a cuddling together, so to speak, and a swift interchange of
impressions.

"You haven't given me an opportunity to explain, Miss Madigan--" he
began, in the pause during which Madigan carved strenuously.

"'Aunt Anne,' if you please, my dear boy," urged Miss Madigan, warmly.
"The relationship's distant, but now that you are with us we can have no
ceremony out here in the wilds."

"Oh, thank you." The savior, turning toward her, saw the fattest little
Madigan nudge her red-haired neighbor savagely. She was evidently angry
at