s
could not carry them. For the second time that day, Peggy included
herself in her stern denunciation.

"It's perfectly appalling. We didn't know how many states there were, we
didn't know about the stripes on the flag, and now we don't know 'The
Star Spangled Banner.' It's a disgrace. Not a single person in this room
knows 'The Star Spangled Banner.'"

"I do," said Jerry Morton.

"Oh, all right. You can teach it to the rest of us, then," declared
Peggy, and for the next hour the drilling went forward relentlessly. The
company repeated each verse in chorus till there was no sign of doubt or
hesitation, and then sang it through. When the verses had been mastered
separately, the entire song was rendered with telling effect. Aunt
Abigail clapped her hands.

"I've often wondered why the English and the Germans were so much better
posted on their national songs than we are. If all patriotic young
Americans took this sensible way of spending a rainy Fourth of July, our
critics would have one less arrow in their quiver."

The afternoon was well advanced, and Rosetta Muriel rose to make her
farewells, expressing an enjoyment which was perhaps a concession to her
sense of propriety, rather than a perfectly spontaneous expression of
feeling. Rosetta Muriel found the girls of Dolittle Cottage strangely
puzzling. She had prepared herself to meet these city visitors on their
own ground, and instead of holding her own, she had it all her own way.
Apparently she was the only one of the company who could claim with any
show of reason, to be an authority on the doings of the smart set.

After supper, while the rain still pounded unweariedly on the roof, Aunt
Abigail told the story of a high-spirited young ancestress, who had
lived back in the colonial times, and in the stirring days of '76 had
pitted her wits against one of King George's officers, and won from him
a concession which was perhaps equally a tribute to her beauty and her
brains. It was one of the stories which cannot be re-told too often,
full of the audacious courage of gallant youth, and the listening girls
felt a vicarious pride in the daring of their countrywoman of bygone
days. As for Amy, she straightened herself so as to give the effect of
having grown suddenly taller.

"_My_ ancestress," she observed with fitting pride. "How many times
my great-grandmother was she, Aunt Abigail? It's no wonder I'm a little
out of the ordinary."

In spite of a disheartenin