y, and
human patience has a limit. One must draw the line somewhere."

"What auctioneer?" demands Potts, indignant. "I am going to tell them
about my mother and the auction; I never said a word about an
auctioneer; there mightn't have been one, for all I know."

"There generally _is_ at an auction," ventures Luttrell, mildly.
"Go on, Potts; I like your stories immensely, they are so full of wit
and spirit. I know this one, about your mother's bonnet, well; it is an
old favorite,--quite an heirloom--the story, I mean, not the bonnet. I
remember so distinctly the first time you told it to us at mess: how we
did laugh, to be sure! Don't forget any of the details. The last time
but four you made the bonnet pink, and it must have been so awfully
unbecoming to your mother! Make it blue to-night."

"Now do go on, Mr. Potts; I am dying to hear all about it," declares
Molly.

"Well, when my uncle died," begins Potts, "all his furniture was sold
by auction. And there was a mirror in the drawing-room my mother had
always had a tremendous fancy for----"

"'And my mother was always in the habit of wearing a black bonnet,'"
quotes Sir Penthony, gravely. "I know it by heart."

"If you do you may as well tell it yourself," says Potts, much
offended.

"Never mind him, Plantagenet; do go on," exclaims Cecil, impatiently.

"Well, she was in the habit of wearing a black bonnet, as it
_happens_," says Mr. Potts, with suppressed ire; "but just before
the auction she bought a new one, and it was pink."

"Oh, why on earth don't you say blue?" expostulates Luttrell, with a
groan.

"Because it was pink. I suppose I know my mother's bonnet better than
you?"

"But, my dear fellow, think of her complexion! And at first, I assure
you, you always used to make it blue."

"I differ with you," puts in Sir Penthony, politely. "I always
understood it was a sea-green."

"It was _pink_," reiterates Plantagenet, firmly. "Well, we had a
cook who was very fond of my mother----"

"I thought it was a footman. And it really _was_ a footman, you
know," says Luttrell, reproachfully.

"The butler, you mean, Luttrell," exclaims Sir Penthony, with
exaggerated astonishment at his friend's want of memory.

"And she, having most unluckily heard my mother say she feared she
could not attend the auction, made up her mind to go herself and at all
hazards secure the coveted mirror for her----"

"And she didn't know my mother had on the new sea-green bo