ar and wide.

With some difficulty the old lady crept out from under the far side of
the bed. She was ready to retire, her nightcap securely tied under her
chin, and all.

When Ruth, much troubled by a desire to laugh, asked her, she explained
that the first missile had landed upon her head while she was kneeling
beside the bed at her devotions.

"I got up and another of the things hit me on the ear," pursued Aunt
Sarah, short and sharp. "Another landed in the small of my back, and I
went over into that corner. But pieces of the ceiling were droppin' all
over and no matter where I got to, they hit me. So I dove under the
bed----"

"Oh! you poor, dear Auntie!"

"If the dratted ceilin's all comin' down, this ain't no place for us to
stay," quoth Aunt Sarah.

"I am sure it is all over," urged Ruth. "But if you'd like to go to
another room----?"

"And sleep in a bed that ain't been aired in a dog's age?" snapped Aunt
Sarah. "I guess not."

"Then, will you come and sleep with me? Aggie can go into the children's
room."

"No. If you are sure there ain't no more goin' to fall?"

"I am positive, Auntie."

"Then I'm going to bed," declared the old lady. "But I allus told Peter
this old place was bound to go to rack and ruin because o' his
miserliness."

Ruth waited till her aunt got into bed, where she almost at once fell
asleep. Then the girl scrambled for the remainder of the broken crackers
and carried them all out into the hall in the trash basket.

Neale O'Neil was sitting on the top step of the front stairs, waiting
for her appearance.

"Well! I guess I did it that time," he said. "She looked at me savage
enough to bite, at supper. What's she going to do now--have me arrested
and hung?" and he grinned suddenly.

"Oh, Neale!" gasped Ruth, overcome with laughter. "How could you?"

"I thought you girls were in there. I was giving Aggie her crackers
back," Neale grunted.

Ruth explained to him how the crackers had come to be left in his room.
Agnes had had nothing to do with it. "I guess the joke is on you, after
all, Neale," she said, obliged to laugh in the end.

"Or on that terrible old lady."

"But she doesn't know it is a joke. I don't know what she'll say
to-morrow when she sees that none of the ceiling has fallen."

Fortunately Aunt Sarah supplied an explanation herself--and nothing
could have shaken her belief in her own opinion. One of her windows was
dropped down half way from the top. She