ber."

"Poh! yes, I do; they were _spin-footed_!"

"Why, Horace," said Grace, laughing; "you mean _web-footed_!"

Horace bent his eyes on his plate, and did not look up again for some
time.

There was chicken-salad on the table. Margaret made that--putting in new
butter, because she knew Mrs. Clifford did not like oil.

There was delicious looking cake, "some that had been touched with
frost, and some that hadn't," as grandpa said, when he passed the
basket.

But the crowning glory of the supper was a dish of scarlet strawberries,
which looked as if they had been drinking dew-drops and sunshine till
they had caught all the richness and sweetness of summer.

"O, ma!" whispered Grace, "I'm beginning to feel so happy! I only wish
my father was here."

After tea, grandpa took Horace and Grace on each knee, large as they
were, and sang some delightful evening hymns with what was left of his
once fine voice. He looked so peaceful and happy, that his daughters
were reminded of the Bible verse, "Children's children are the crown of
old men."

"I think now," said Mrs. Clifford, coming back from putting the baby to
sleep, "it's high time my boy and girl were saying, 'Good-night, and
pleasant dreams.'"

"Aunt Madge is going up stairs with us; aren't you, auntie?"

"Yes, Horace; your other auntie wouldn't do, I suppose," said Louise.
"That makes me think of the way this same Horace used to treat me when
he was two years old. '_Her_ can't put me to bed,' he would say; 'her's
too _little_.'"

"I remember," said Margaret, "how he dreaded cold water. When his mother
called him to be washed, and said, 'Ma doesn't want a little dirty boy,'
he would look up in her face, and say, 'Does mamma want 'ittle _cold_
boy?'"

The happy children kissed everybody good-night, and followed their aunt
Madge up stairs. Now, there was a certain small room, whose one window
opened upon the piazza, and it was called "the green chamber." It
contained a cunning little bedstead, a wee bureau, a dressing-table, and
washing-stand, all pea-green. It was a room which seemed to have been
made and furnished on purpose for a child, and it had been promised to
Grace in every letter aunt Madge had written to her for a year.

Horace had thought but little about the room till to-night, when his
aunt led Grace into it, and he followed. It seemed so fresh and sweet in
"the green chamber," and on the dressing-table there was a vase of
flowers.

Aunt Ma