e widow and orphans wouldn't grin so, I'd be glad. You'd better be
thinking about how you'd feel to be buried, and you are likely to be in
this family," she continued with an offensive accent on _this_.

"Let's hurry up, I'm hot," said the chief mourner.

So they went down and buried the boxes, singing "Billy Boy" as a
requiem. Bose watched their departure with interest, and dug up both
boxes without delay.

Bobby and Nan were invited to stay to lunch, and they accepted with
cheerful alacrity.

"I asked mother, for fear you'd ask me if I could stay, and she said yes
indeed I _could_, and she'd be glad to have me," said Nan. Bobby yelled
his request over the fence, and was told he could stay too.

They had strawberry jam, hot biscuit, fried chicken, and little frosted
spice cakes, for which Mandy was famous.

"Just supposing your mother and mine had said no, about this luncheon,"
said Nan to Bobby. "I never could have gotten over the loss of these
cakes."

"You've eaten four. I'm glad Mandy made a good many," said Beth calmly.

"Why Beth!" said her mother horrified.

"Yessum, she has," continued Beth. "I've passed them four times, and she
took one every time. I've had five!" she concluded.

In the afternoon the postman brought them a letter from their Cousin
Gladys, who was in Paris with her father and mother. So they all
gathered around mother to hear it.

"DEAR E. AND B.," it began.

"This is a silly city.

"They talk like babies. No one can understand them. I'd like them
better if they'd talk plain American.

"Their stoves look like granddaddy long legs; they are funny boxes,
and when you are cold, they wheel them into your room, and stick
the pipe in the hole, and by and by wheel them out. We live in an
artist's house on a street that means Asses street, and our front
room is a saloon but not a drinking one, and it runs right through
the up-stairs to the skylight. You have to pay for that. Think of
charging for daylight! We went to a bird show and I saw a cockatoo
sitting on a pole asleep. 'Scratch its back with your parasol,
Gladys,' said mother, so I did, and it opened one eye when I
stopped, and said, 'Encore,' I was put out to think even the birds
didn't talk American, but when I said so, mother laughed but I
don't see why.

"Write and tell me all the news. No more now from

"Your cousin,

"GLADYS.