telephone. But
the maid had taken a fancy to dusting the living-room, where the
telephone lived. In all her domestic history the maid had never done
that before--attest many sarcastic remarks of Lulu.

They had planned to catch the four-o'clock train for New York. Half-past
three now. The maid was polishing the silver in the dining-room, which
was separated from the living-room only by an open arch. Father dared
not telephone, lest she instantly send for Lulu.

Mother tiptoed down and the runaways plotted in whispers. Upon which
conspiracy Lulu brightly entered through the front door.

For a second Father had a wild, courageous desire to do the natural
thing, to tell Lulu that they were going. But he quailed as Lulu
demanded: "Have you tried on the coat and frilled shirt for to-morrow
evening yet, papa? You know there may have to be some alterations in
them. I'm sure mama won't mind making them, will you, mama! Oh, you two
will be so cute and dear, I know everybody will love you, and it will
give such a homey, old-fashioned touch that--"

"No, I haven't tried it on yet, and I ain't sure I'm a-going--" Father
gallantly attempted.

Lulu glared at him and said, in a voice of honey and aloes, "I'm sure,
papa dear, I don't ask very much of you, and when I do ask just this
one little thing that I'm sure anybody else would be glad to help me
with and me doing my very best to make you happy--"

No! No, no! Father didn't tell her they were going to New York. He was
glad enough to escape up-stairs without having the monkey coat tried on
him by force.

Their suit case and steamer-trunk stood betrayingly in the middle of the
room. With panting anxiety, heaving and puffing, the two domestic
anarchists lifted the steamer-trunk, slipped it under the bed and kicked
the suit-case into the closet, and sat down to wait for the next train
to New York, which left at eleven P. M.

At dinner--such a jolly family dinner, with Mr. Hartwig carving and
emitting little jokes, with Harry whining about his homework and Lulu
telling the maid what an asphyxiated fool she was to have roasted the
lamb too long-- Father was highly elaborate in his descriptions of how
he had tried on the tail-coat and found it to be a superb fit. As the
coat was the personal theatricals-equipment of Mr. Harris Hartwig, who
was shaped like the dome of the county court-house, Lulu looked
suspicious, but Harry was discovered making bread pills, and she was so
engag