few families a better one, though we say it that
should not. Although in Algy there was a slight falling off, it was not
much to complain of. But I am sensibly uglier than Algy (as indeed he
has, on several occasions, dispassionately remarked to me); the Brat
than me; Bobby than the Brat; and so steadily on, till we reach our
nadir of unhandsomeness in Tou Tou. Tou Tou is our climax, and we
certainly defy our neighbors and acquaintances to outdo her.

Hapless young Tou Tou! made up of the thinnest legs, the widest mouth,
the invisiblest nose, and over-visiblest ears, that ever went to the
composition of a child of twelve years.

"Keep stirring always! You must take care that it does not stick to the
bottom!" say I, closing the receipt-book, and speaking on my own
account, but still as one having authority.

"All very well to say 'Keep stirring always,'" answers Barbara, turning
round a face unavoidably pretty, even though at the present moment
deeply flame-colored; eyes still sweetly laughing with gay good-humor,
even though half burnt out of her head, to answer me; "but if you had
been stirring as long as I have, you would wonder that you had any arm
left to stir with, however feebly. Here, one of you boys, take a turn!
You Brat, you never do any thing for your living!"

The Brat complies, though not with eagerness. They change occupations:
the Brat stirs, and she fishes for almonds. Ten minutes pass: the taffy
is done, and what is more it really is taffy. The upshot of our cookery
is in general so startlingly indifferent from what we had intended, that
the result in the present case takes us by surprise. We all prove
practically that, in the words of the receipt-book, it "breaks clear
between the teeth without sticking to them." It is poured into Bobby's
soup-plate, and we have thrown up the window-sashes, and set it on the
ledge to cool. The searching wind blows in dry and biting. Now it is
rushing in a violent current through the room, for the door has opened.
Mother enters.

"To what may we attribute the honor of this visit?" says Algy, turning
away from the window to meet her, and setting her a chair. Bobby gives
her a kiss, and the Brat a lump of taffy, concerning which it would be
invidious to predicate which were the stickier; so exceedingly adhesive
are both.

"Your father says," begins she, sitting down. She is interrupted by a
loud and universal groan.

"Says what? Something unpleasant of course, who