ays all that keeps her alive is that she's scared
her husband will marry again."

CECILY:--"This is old Mr. James MacPherson who used to live behind the
graveyard."

DAN:--"He's the man who told mother once that he always made his own
iodine out of strong tea and baking soda."

CECILY:--"This is Cousin Ebenezer MacPherson on the Markdale road."

DAN:--"Great temperance man! He never tasted rum in his life. He took
the measles when he was forty-five and was crazy as a loon with them,
and the doctor ordered them to give him a dose of brandy. When he
swallowed it he looked up and says, solemn as an owl, 'Give it to me
oftener and more at a time.'"

CECILY, IMPLORINGLY:--"(Dan, do stop. You make me so nervous I don't
know what I'm doing.) This is Mr. Lemuel Goodridge. He is a minister."

DAN:--"You ought to see his mouth. Uncle Roger says the drawing string
has fell out of it. It just hangs loose--so fashion."

Dan, whose own mouth was far from being beautiful, here gave an
imitation of the Rev. Lemuel's, to the utter undoing of Peter, Felix,
and myself. Our wild guffaws of laughter penetrated even Great-aunt
Eliza's deafness, and she glanced up with a startled face. What we would
have done I do not know had not Felicity at that moment appeared in the
doorway with panic-stricken eyes and exclaimed,

"Cecily, come here for a moment."

Cecily, glad of even a temporary respite, fled to the kitchen and we
heard her demanding what was the matter.

"Matter!" exclaimed Felicity, tragically. "Matter enough! Some of you
left a soup plate with molasses in it on the pantry table and Pat got
into it and what do you think? He went into the spare room and walked
all over Aunt Eliza's things on the bed. You can see his tracks plain as
plain. What in the world can we do? She'll be simply furious."

I looked apprehensively at Great-aunt Eliza; but she was gazing
intently at a picture of Aunt Janet's sister's twins, a most stolid,
uninteresting pair; but evidently Great-aunt Eliza found them amusing
for she was smiling widely over them.

"Let us take a little clean water and a soft bit of cotton," came
Cecily's clear voice from the kitchen, "and see if we can't clean the
molasses off. The coat and hat are both cloth, and molasses isn't like
grease."

"Well, we can try, but I wish the Story Girl would keep her cat home,"
grumbled Felicity.

The Story Girl here flew out to defend her pet, and we four boys sat on,
miserably co