o! Don't you
know? Don't you 'member? Always you told me I should have anything I
wanted that day when Grandpa comes, anything--any single thing. You
wouldn't like to tell a wrong story, would you, Mamma dear? Because
he's comed--this is the day--and what Eunice wants is the lovely,
lovely monkeys! Buy 'em for me, Mamma darling! Grandpa, make her!"
pleaded the child, for once wholly forgetful that she was displaying
her deformity to all these people, and running from her mother back to
the Colonel.

With a return of his usual sadness, he lifted her and kissed her, then
set her gently down, saying:

"Honey, I cayn't. I never could. Ah! hum, she was a deal younger 'n
you when she took the reins into her hands an' begun drivin' for
herself. I cayn't help ye, sweetheart, but I'd give--give--even Billy
if she'd do what you want."

"Oh! Colonel, you can't give again what you've already given! Billy--"

"No, Miss Dorothy, there you're mistook! Billy wouldn't be give, he
wasn't accepted, he--Honey sweetness, Grandpa cayn't!"

"Are those monkeys for sale?" asked Mrs. Jabb.

Aurora looked at Gerald and Gerald nudged Melvin. Here was a solution
to their own dilemma--"what shall we do with the monks?" So being thus
urged, as he supposed, by his partner in trade, Melvin promptly
answered:

"No, Mrs. Jabb, they aren't for sale. But if this little girl would
like to have them we are delighted to make her a present of them,
don't you know? Just--_delighted_."

The lady was going to say she couldn't accept so valuable a gift and
would prefer to buy them, but just then a groan he couldn't subdue
escaped the disappointed Gerald and she felt that he was selfish and
should be punished. Of course, anybody rich enough to idle away a
whole autumn, house-boating, could afford to give a half-share in a
pair of monkeys to a crippled child. But in her judgment she did poor
Gerry an injustice. His groan would have been a cry of rejoicing that
his deal in monkeys was to be taken off his hands had not Jim, at that
instant, given him a kick under the table with a too forcible
sympathy.

"Very well. But how does a person transport monkeys?" asked the
doctor's wife, while Eunice danced about the cabin in great glee.

"Oh! they have a cage. A real nice cage, but I'd like to give it a
good cleaning before it's taken away," said Elsa.

"Would that take long? I'd like to send for it as soon as we get home.
Eunice so seldom cares about any new