'd be more of a circus
than you were, Genevieve!"

"Thank you," bowed Genevieve, with mock stiffness.

"Oh, we loved you right away--and we should Quentina, of course."

"Thank you," bowed Quentina, in her turn, laughingly.

CHAPTER XII

THE OPENING OF A BARREL

It was a merry afternoon and evening that the Happy Hexagons spent at
Quentina's home, and it was still a merrier time that they had getting
settled for the night. Even Tilly said at last:

"Well, Quentina, it's lucky a lame foot doesn't have ears. I don't know
what your mother will say to us!"

"Only fancy if Miss Jane were here," shivered Genevieve.

It was just as the family were finishing breakfast the next morning that
there came a knock at the door, and a man rolled in a large barrel.

"Oh, it's the missionary barrel--our barrel from the East!" cried
Quentina. "I wonder now--what do you suppose there is in it?"

"There isn't anything, I reckon, except old things," piped up Rob,
shrilly.

Mrs. Jones colored painfully.

"Robert, my son!" she remonstrated, in evident distress.

"Well, mother, you _know_ there isn't--most generally," defended
Robert.

"And if they _are_ new, they're the sort of things we couldn't ever
use," added Ned.

"Boys, boys, that will do," commanded the minister, quickly.

The minister, with Paul's help, had the barrel nearly open by this time.

"It isn't from Sunbridge, is it?" asked Genevieve.

"No--though we get them from there sometimes; but this is from a little
town in Vermont," replied Mrs. Jones. "We had a letter last week from
the minister. He--he apologized a little; said that times had been hard,
and that they'd had trouble to fill it. As if it wasn't hard enough for
us to take it, without that!" she finished bitterly, with almost a sob.

"Rita, my dear!" murmured her husband, in a low, distressed voice.

Mrs. Jones dashed quick tears from her eyes.

"I know; I don't mean to be ungrateful. But--times have been a little
hard--with _us_!"

Silent, and a little awed, the Happy Hexagons stood at one side.
Genevieve, especially, looked out from troubled eyes. Very slowly
Genevieve was waking up to the fact that not every one in the world had
luxuries, or even what she would call ordinary comforts of living. Mrs.
Jones, seeing her face, spoke hurriedly.

"There, there, girls, please forget what I said! It was very kind of
those good people to send the barrel--very kind; and I am sure we shall