cises," and she was glad for her
mother to see how poky it was to drum at them for an hour. As a rule,
Marjorie did her practising patiently enough, but sometimes she
revolted, and it made her chuckle to see Mrs. Maynard carefully picking
out the "five-finger drills."

"Keep your hands straight, Helen," she admonished her mother. "Keep the
backs of them so level that a lead pencil wouldn't roll off. I'll get a
lead pencil."

"No, don't!" exclaimed Mrs. Maynard, in dismay. She liked to play the
piano, but she was far from careful to hold her hands in the position
required by Midget's teacher.

"Yes, I think I'd better, Helen. If you contract bad habits, it's so
difficult to break them."

Roguish Marjorie brought a lead pencil, and laid it carefully across the
back of her mother's hand, from which it immediately rolled off.

"Now, Helen, you must hold your hand level. Try again, dearie, and if it
rolls off, pick it up and put it back in place."

Mrs. Maynard made a wry face, and the other grown-ups laughed, to see
the difficulty she experienced with the pencil.

"One--two--three--four," she counted, aloud.

"Count to yourself, Helen," said Marjorie. "It's annoying to hear you do
that!"

This, too, was quoted, for Mrs. Maynard had often objected to the
monotonous drone of Marjorie's counting aloud.

But the mother began to see that a child's life has its own little
troubles, and she smiled appreciatively at Midget, as she picked up the
pencil from the floor for the twentieth time, and replaced it on the
back of her hand, now stiff and lame from the unwonted restraint.

"You dear old darling!" cried Midget, flying over and kissing the
patient musician; "you sha'n't do that any longer! I declare, King, it's
clearing off, after all! Let's take the children out for a walk."

"Very well, we will. Oh, here comes Ruth! Come in, Ruth."

Ruth Rowland came in, and looked greatly mystified at the appearance of
the elder members of the group before her.

But King and Midget explained what was going on, and said:

"And you can be Aunt Ruth, come to call on us and our children."

Ruth's eyes danced with fun, and she sat down, saying to Marjorie, "I'm
glad to see the children looking so well; have any of them the
whooping-cough? I hear it's around some."

"I have," declared Cousin Jack, and then he began to cough and whoop in
a most exaggerated imitation of the whooping-cough. Indeed, in his
paroxysms, he almost turn