g at Hilda, who sat beside him on the sofa. "Moreover,
don't I get ten columns of news every three days? I know far more about
this town than you do, I bet!"

Everybody laughed at Mrs. Orgreave, the great letter-writer and
universal disseminator of information.

"Now, Alicia, you must go to bed," said Mrs. Orgreave. And Alicia
regretted that she had been so indiscreet as to draw attention to
herself.

"The kid can stay up if she will say her piece," said Charlie mockingly.
He knew that he could play the autocrat, for that evening at any rate.

"What piece?" the child demanded, blushing and defiant.

"Her 'Abou Ben Adhem,'" said Charlie. "Do you think I don't know all
about that too?"

"Oh, mother, you are a bore!" Alicia exclaimed, pouting. "Why did you
tell him that?... Well, I'll say it if Hilda will recite something as
well."

"Me!" murmured Hilda, staggered. "I never recite!"

"I've always understood you recite beautifully," said Mrs. Orgreave.

"You know you do, Hilda!" said Janet.

"Of course you do," said Charlie.

"_You've_ never heard me, anyhow!" she replied to him obstinately. How
could they have got it fixed into their heads that she was a reciter?
This renown was most disconcerting.

"Now, Hilda!" Mr. Orgreave soothingly admonished her from the back of
the sofa. She turned her head and looked up at him, smiling in her
distress.

"Go ahead, then, kid! It's agreed," said Charlie.

And Alicia galloped through Leigh Hunt's moral poem, which she was
preparing for an imminent speech-day, in an extraordinarily short space
of time.

"But I can't remember anything. I haven't recited for years and years,"
Hilda pleaded, when the child burst out, "Now, Hilda!"

"_Stuff_!" Charlie pronounced.

"Some Tennyson?" Mrs. Orgreave suggested. "Don't you know any Tennyson?
We must have something, now." And Alicia, exulting in the fact that she
had paid the penalty imposed, cried that there could be no drawing back.

Hilda was lost. Mrs. Orgreave's tone, with all its softness, was a
command. "Tennyson? I've forgotten 'Maud,'" she muttered.

"I'll prompt you," said Charlie. "Thomas!"

Everybody looked at Tom, expert in literature as well as in music; Tom,
the collector, the owner of books and bookcases. Tom went to a bookcase
and drew forth a green volume, familiar and sacred throughout all
England.

"Oh dear!" Hilda moaned.

"Where do you mean to begin?" Charlie sternly inquired. "It just happens
th