old lady held her head haughtily as she walked into the handsomely
furnished office. The president, mindful of her official capacity,
looked severely upon Mrs. Walker--Sarah Lucinda Walker, according to the
cramped signature of the home's register, widow, native of Maine, aged
sixty-seven on her entrance into the home five years ago. And Mrs.
Walker--a miracle of aged neatness, trim, straight, little, in her
somber black and immaculate cap--looked severely back.

"Be seated, Mrs. Walker," said the president.

"Thank you." Mrs. Walker crossed with a formal "Good morning, ladies,"
and took the chair indicated.

"Now, Mr. McCaleb, if you please----" said the president.

The superintendent rose.

"Ladies," he began with a solemnity that made the offender quake within,
though outwardly she was calm as the president herself, "it is with
positive pain that I have to report to you the case of Mrs. Sarah
Lucinda Walker. It is now fully three months since I began to labor with
her--three months since I warned her of this very thing that has come to
pass, an investigation by your honorable board. On the 9th of
January"--he glanced methodically at a note-book--"I sent her a copy of
the by-laws, with the section referring to insubordination underscored
in red ink. On the 23d I made a personal call upon her, and sought to
convince her how impossible it was that such conduct could be tolerated.
On February 7th I publicly reprimanded her. On the 13th--five days
ago--I informed her that, after considering it prayerfully, I had laid
the matter before your honorable body, and that she should hold herself
in readiness to be summoned before you to meet the following charges:

"First, insubordination; second, breaking Rule VIII of the house
regulations; third, taking food from the table; fourth, disturbing
neighbors in early morning; and fifth, defacing the building."

Mr. McCaleb took his seat. The shocked gaze of the board bent itself
upon the criminal. The bad little old lady's far-sighted eyes swept
insolently past them all and met the president's--twenty years younger
than her own.

"Do you like birds, ma'am?" she asked, herself in an eager, bird-like
way. And then, without waiting for an answer, she went on: "I love
'em--anything that's got wings. Old Cap'n Walker used to say, 'Sary
Lucindy, they was a moughty fine ornithologist spiled when God A'mighty
made you a woman 'stead of a man.' He was a free-spoken man, Cap'n
Walker,