but a sleepy old gray one this time!" Timmie would bewail.
"And gray beads, too! Do hurry up, Ma, and get it done so we can have
something else."

But let the paper disclose a brilliant blue or a red tulle and
instantly every child clapped his hands.

Exultantly they examined the scintillating jet or iridescent sequins.

"Oh, this is the best yet, Ma!" Carl would cry. "It's a peach of a
dress."

Their ingenious admiration did much to transform their mother's tedious
task into a fine art and helped her to regard it with dignity.
Certainly its influence on the characters of her children was
inestimable. Not alone did it answer their craving for beauty, but far
better than this aesthetic gratification was the education it gave them
in thoughtfulness and unselfishness. Consideration for their mother,
restraint, independence, all emerged out of the yards of foolish gauze
and the frivolous spangles.

Therefore Mrs. McGregor sewed on serene in spirit and if, as to-night,
her task barred her from secrets her children might amid greater
leisure have bestowed on her, the circumstance was accepted as one of
the unavoidable disadvantages attending constant occupation.

It was regrettable she had not more time to talk with her sons and
daughters separately. Confidences were shy and volatile things that
could not be delivered in a hurry or hastily fitted into the chinks of
a busy day. Confidences depended on mood and could not be regulated so
that they would be forthcoming in the few seconds snatched between one
duty and another.

As a result it came about that after Carl had swallowed his supper,
frolicked with the younger children and helped Mary put them to bed,
brought in the kindlings and coal for the morning fire, it was time for
him to tumble in between the sheets himself, and he did so without
mentioning to his mother or any one else his adventures of the
afternoon or his morrow's appointment with the stranger.

One does not always wish to relate his affairs before five small
brothers and sisters whose little ears drink in the story and whose
tiny tongues are liable artlessly to repeat it.

In the McGregor household there was affection and happiness; but, alas,
there was no such thing as privacy.

CHAPTER V

A TANGLE OF SURPRISES

Morning, to which Carl had looked forward for a moment with his mother,
brought, alas, even more meager opportunity for imparting secrets than
had the night before, for as wa