mouth wide open, waiting to
finish her protest so soon as the ordeal was over.

Peggy forestalled her, however, with an eager plea to be allowed to take
the third picture herself.

"I want to have one of Oswald to send to mother, for we are not complete
without him, and I know it would please her to think I had taken it
myself," she urged; and permission was readily granted, as everyone felt
that she had a special claim in the matter. Oswald therefore put in new
plates, gave instructions as to how the shutters were to be worked, and
retired to take up an elegant position in the centre of the group.

"Are you read-ee?" cried Peggy, in professional sing-song; then she put
her head on one side and stared at the group with twinkling eyes. "Hee,
hee! How silly you look! Everyone has a new expression for the
occasion! Your own mothers would not recognise you! That's better.
Keep that smile going for another moment, and--how long must I keep off
the cap, did you say?"

Oswald hesitated.

"Well, it varies. You have to use your own judgment. It depends upon--
lots of things! You might try one second for the first, and two for the
next, then one of them is bound to be right."

"And one a failure! If I were going to depend on my judgment, I'd have
a better one than that!" cried Peggy scornfully. "Ready! A little more
cheerful, if you please--Christmas is coming! That's _one_. Be so good
as to remain in your positions, ladies and gentlemen, and I'll try
another." The second shutter was pulled out, the cap removed, and the
group broke up with sighs of relief, exhausted with the strain of
cultivating company smiles for a whole two minutes on end. Max stayed
to help the girls to fold up the camera, while Oswald darted into the
house to prepare the dark room for the development of the plates.

When he came out, ten minutes later on, it was a pleasant surprise to
discover Miss Mellicent holding a plate in her hand and taking sly peeps
inside the shutter, just "to see how it looked." He stormed and raved,
while Mellicent looked like a martyr, wished to know how a teeny little
light like that could possibly hurt anything, and seemed incapable of
understanding that if one flash of sunlight could make a picture, it
could also destroy it with equal swiftness. Oswald was forced to
comfort himself with the reflection that there were still three plates
uninjured; and, when all was ready, the six operators squeezed
them