nced around the table, removing the knives and forks;
their innocent, pinky faces were full of cherubic glee. This occasion
was, metaphorically speaking, a whole flock of jubilant infantile
larks for them. They loved company with all their souls, and they
also felt always a pleasant titillation of their youthful spirits
when they saw their grandmother in perturbation. Unless, indeed, they
themselves were the cause of it, when it acquired a personal force
which rendered it not so entertaining.

Soon, however, a remark of their grandmother's caused their buoyant
spirits to realize that there was a force of gravitation for all here
below.

"I don't know but you children will have to wait," said she.

There was an instantaneous wail of dismay, the pinky faces elongated,
the blue eyes scowled sulkily. "Oh, gramma, we don't want to wait!
Can't we sit down with the others? Say, gramma, can't we? Can't we
sit down with the others?"

"Of course you can sit down with the others. Don't make such a
racket, children." That was their mother coming in, good-natured and
triumphant, with the pie.

"I don't know whether they can or not," said their grandmother. "I
ain't put in an extra leaf; this table-cloth wa'n't long enough, an'
I wa'n't goin' to have the big table-cloth to do up for all the
Maxwells in creation."

"Oh, there's room enough," Flora said, easily. "I can squeeze them in
beside me. Put the napkins round, children, and stop teasing. Didn't
I get a beautiful pie?"

"What kind is it?"

"Squash."

"An' our squashes are all gone, an' I've got to buy one to pay her
back. I should have thought you'd known better, Flora."

"It was all the kind she had. I couldn't help it. Squashes don't cost
much, mother."

"They cost something, an' I've got all them dried apples to use up
for pies."

"Have they come in?" asked Flora, with happy unconcern about the cost
of squashes and the utilization of dried apples.

"Yes, I s'pose so. I thought I heard Daniel taking 'em in the front
door. I s'pose they're in the parlor."

"You ought to go in a minute, hadn't you?"

"I s'pose so," replied Mrs. Lowe, with a sigh of fierce resignation.

"I'll finish setting the things on the table, and you go in. Take off
your apron."

"This dress don't look fit."

"Yes, it does, too; it's clean. Run along."

Mrs. Lowe smoothed her sparse hair severely at the kitchen
looking-glass; then she advanced upon the parlor with the air of a
p