glittering row, the one or two
stiff, flat, old oil portraits that looked down from the walls, the jars
of yellow acacia bloom, and bowls of mingled wild flowers; these made a
setting wonderfully well suited to the long table and the happy family
about it.

There were seven children, five girls and two boys; there was the
gracious, genial mother at the head and the wiry, gray-haired and
gray-bearded surgeon at the foot; there was, as usual, Jim Studdiford,
and to-day, besides, there was Aunt Sanna, an unmarried younger sister
of the doctor, and a little black-eyed, delicate ten-year-old guest of
the eleven-year-old Janie, Keith Borroughs, who was sitting near to
Janie, and evidently adoring that spirited chatterbox. And there was
Addie, a cheerful black-clad person in a crackling white apron, coming
and going with muffins and bacon, and Toy, who was a young cousin of
Hee, the cook, and who padded softly in Addie's wake, making himself
generally useful.

Barbara, very pretty, very casual as to what she ate, sat next to her
father; she was the oldest of the seven Tolands, and slipping very
reluctantly out of her eighteenth year. Ned, a big, handsome fellow of
sixteen, came next in point of age, and then a tall, lanky, awkward
blond boy, Richie, with a plain thin face and the sweetest smile of them
all. Richie never moved without the aid of a crutch, and perhaps never
would. After Richie, and nearing fourteen, was a sweet, fat, giggling
lump of a girl called Sally, with a beautiful skin and beautiful untidy
hair, and a petticoat always dragging, a collar buttoned awry, and a
belt that never by any chance united her pretty shirt waist to her crisp
linen skirt. Only a year younger than Sally was Theodora, whose staid,
precocious beauty Barbara already found disquieting--"Ted" was already
giving signs of rivalling her oldest sister--then came Jane, bold,
handsome, boyish at eleven, and lastly eight-year-old Constance, a
delicate, pretty, tearful little girl who was spoiled by every member of
the family.

The children's mother was a plump, handsome little woman with bright,
flashing eyes, dimples, and lovely little hands covered with rings.
There was no gray in her prettily puffed hair, and, if she was stouter
than any of her daughters, none could show a more trimly controlled
figure. Mrs. Toland had been impressed in the days of her happy girlhood
with the romantic philosophies of the seventies. To her, as an impulsive
y