d not make such a lot of work for you?"

"Deary me, Miss Osgood, it's a pleasure to me to have you here. But I
wisht you'd come into the parlor, all of you, you and your friends. I'll
lay papers down on the carpet, and you can just walk in."

They all protested, but as it soon became clear that it was as much a
desire to display the beauties of her room as hospitality that prompted
the invitation, they yielded and filed damply along the newspaper path
into the gaudy parlor. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had come
up, and the sun was shining through the flowers in the lace curtains at
the windows, and striking the bright pink morning-glory of the
graphophone, which was the most conspicuous object in the room. Mrs.
Mills, preceding her wet guests, turned the track a little past the
telephone, resplendent in oak and nickel, so that the whole procession
could be inside the room at once. Then she called their respectful
attention to her framed marriage certificate, and a similar document
declaring the late Jacob Quincy Mills a Grand Something or Other in some
lodge. Beneath these, on a shelf, were two tall lava jars filled with
pampas grass, a pink china vase and a wreath of Easter lilies made of
spangled paper.

"I'd like to show you the pictures in the family album," said Mrs. Mills
hospitably, resting her hand upon the fat plush volume on the center
table, "but I don't see how more'n two or three of you can look at it at
a time." She frowned a moment, puzzled. Then her face lighted. "I'll
just set the graphophone goin' for the rest of you to entertain
yourselves with," she said eagerly, and in a moment the room was filled
with the wheezing and strident strains of "You Look Good to Father,"
against which Mrs. Mills raised her own voice in explanatory remarks to
Archie and Frieda, who happened to be within the album's range:

"This is Mr. Mills' sister's first husband. That was their baby that
died. This here is Miss Evelyn Mills of Chicago. She's a singer there at
the Orpheum. She was my husband's own cousin, once removed. This was my
father's aunt,--" and so on.

"Look at Algernon," whispered Max to Polly. "He's as contented as a
lamb. He's learning all there is to know about poultry, and doesn't even
know that infernal machine is going or that Mr. Mills had any
relatives." And sure enough Algernon, standing beside the bookcase, on a
portion of the newspaper track, was reading, even devouring, the pages
of a