be sparing of
words with Aunt Jane. She was still toiling with the heavy
crockery, when a rush of feet in the hallway announced that school
was out.

The door banged wide.

"Hoh! You've got back, have you?"

"Hullo, Poll!"

"Say, what you wearin' my dress for?"

"Oh, you've got on a gold locket! Le' me see it!" Katie's
fingers began pulling at the clasp.

"Oh, don't, please!" cried Polly. "I'll unfasten it for you as
soon as I get the dishes done."

"I want to see it now! Mamma, shan't Polly take off her locket,
and let me see it?"

"Polly, why can't you try to please you cousin, and not be so
stingy with your things?"

"My hands are soapy," she apologized, "and--"

"Well, don't you know enough to wipe them?" snapped Aunt Jane.
"You seem to have grown very helpless."

"Say, what are these blue stones in here?" queried Katie,
turning the locket curiously.

"Turquoises," Polly answered, eyeing with fear Katie's rough
handling.

"Whose picture is this?" was the next question. "Stop, you
Gregory--you'll break it! Mamma, shant' he stop pulling it
so?"

"Yes, Gregory, you just wait, like a good boy, till your sister's
seen it; then you can take it."

Polly trembled. Her beautiful locket and chain in Gregory's dirty
fingers!

"You have n't told me who this is," complained Katie.

"Burton Leonard."

"It's the kid she sung to," added the mother; "the one the paper
told about."

"Oh!" cried Katie. "What big eyes he's got!" And she snapped
the locket together.

"Now it's my turn!" asserted Maude, snatching the pretty thing
from her sister's hand.

Gregory burst into a wail.

"Yer said I could have it next!" he lamented.

"Let him take it!" urged the mother. But Maude only clasped the
chain about her own neck, and danced off to the looking-glass over
the sink.

"Yer mean old thing!" screamed Gregory.

"Come get it, Greg!" Sophia darted towards her sister.

"When yer do, let me know!" jeered Maude, eluding their
outstretched hands, and putting a chair between them and herself.

A short skirmish was followed by a chase around the room, until
their mother interposed.

"Gracious me! What a hubbub! Maude Simpson, bring that locket to
me this minute!"

"It was n't my fault at all!" whimpered Maude, taking off the
chain and dropping it in her mother's lap.

"There's never no peace when you kids are in the house!"
grumbled the woman, tossing aside her work, and disappearing in
the next