talked among themselves.

"Zoe," said Maud, "I should mend that coat differently."

"How would you mend it?" asked Zoe.

"With a patch much larger than that you are sewing on it."

"I shouldn't mend it that way," remarked Sydney. "I'd darn it."

"Thank you both for your very kind and disinterested advice," sniffed
Zoe. "But I learned how to mend before I ever saw you. And I should mend
those gloves in a better way than you are taking."

"If you know so well how to mend, Madam Zoe, will you please give me
some instruction about mending this shoe?" said Herbert. "Cobbling is
not in my line."

"Neither is it in mine, Sir Herbert," she returned, drawing herself up
with a lofty air.

"Such silly pride! They should mend their ways if not their garments,"
remarked Maud, in a scornful aside.

"One should think it beneath her to mend even a worn stocking," said
Rosie.

"No," responded Eva, "and she should mend it well."

"Your first syllable is not hard to guess, children," said Mrs.
Dinsmore; "evidently it is mend."

With that the actors withdrew, and presently Chester Dinsmore returned
alone, marching in and around the room with head erect and pompous air.
His clothes were of fine material and fashionable cut, he wore handsome
jewelry, sported a gold headed cane, and strutted to and fro, gazing
about him with an air of lofty disdain as of one who felt himself
superior to all upon whom his glances fell.

Harold presently followed him into the room. He was dressed as a country
swain, came in with modest, diffident air, and for a while stood
watching Chester curiously from the opposite side of the apartment, then
crossing over, he stood before him, hat in hand, and bowing low.

"Sir," he said respectfully, "will you be so kind as to tell me if you
are anybody in particular? I'm from the country, and shouldn't like to
meet any great man and not know it."

"I, sir?" cried Chester, drawing himself up to his full height, and
swelling with importance. "I? I am the greatest man in America; the
greatest man of the age; I am Mr. Smith, sir, the inventor of the most
delicious ices and confectionery ever eaten."

"Thank you, sir," returned Harold, with another low bow. "I shall always
be proud and happy to have met so great a man."

Laughter, clapping of hands, and cries of "I! I!" among the spectators,
as the two withdrew by way of the hall.

Soon the young actors flocked in again. A book lay on a table, quite
near