the
comparison.

"You're the biggest of all!" exclaimed Uncle Steve, catching the baby up
and seating her on his shoulder, so she could look down on all the
others.

"Yes, me biggest of all," she declared, contentedly, as she wound her fat
arms around Uncle Steve's neck; "now me go see schickens!"

"Not just now, Rosy Posy," said her mother, "let's all go in the house
and see what we can find there."

Easily diverted, the baby went contentedly with her mother, but the
mention of chickens had roused in the other children a desire to see the
farmyard pets, and King said: "Come on, Mops and Kit, let's us go and see
the chickens; come on, Uncle Steve."

"Eliza first!" cried Marjorie, remembering the old cook's friendliness
toward them all; "come on!"

Following Midget's lead, the trio went tearing through the house to the
kitchen.

Uncle Steve paused in the library where the others were, and said to his
sister, "They're the same Maynard children, Helen, if they are a year
older. We enjoyed Marjorie last summer, and I know we'll enjoy Kitty this
year,--but how you can live with them all at once I can't understand!"

"It's habit," said Mrs. Maynard, smiling, "you know, Steve, you can get
used to 'most anything."

"It seems to agree with you, Helen, at any rate," said Grandma Sherwood,
looking at her daughter's pink cheeks and bright eyes.

Meanwhile, the younger Maynards had reached the kitchen, and were dancing
round Eliza, with shouts of glee.

"Are you glad to see me again, Eliza?" asked Marjorie, flinging herself
into the arms of the stout Irishwoman.

"Glad is it, Miss Midget? Faith, I'm thot glad I kin hardly see ye fer
gladness! Ye've grow'd,--but I do say not so much as I expicted! But
Masther King, now he's as high as the church shpire! And as fer Miss
Kitty,--arrah, but she's the dumplin' darlin'! Stan' out there now, Miss
Kitty, an' let me look at yez! Och! but yer the foine gurrul! An' it's ye
thot's comin' to spend the summer. My! but the toimes we'll be havin'!"

It was a custom of the Maynards for one of the children to spend each
summer at Grandma Sherwood's, and as Marjorie had been there last year,
it was now Kitty's turn.

"Yes, I'm coming, Eliza," she said, in her sedate way, "but I'm not going
to stay now, you know; we're all going on a tour. But I'll come back here
the first of June, and stay a long time."

"Any cookies, Eliza?" asked King, apropos of nothing.

"Cookies, is it? Ther