and you know it!" But
Jane shook her head at him, and refused to smile.

"Tommy wants a gooseberry!" shouted the macaw, having apparently
noticed the mention of rhubarb.

"Oh, give it him, somebody!" said the worried duchess.

"Dear aunt," said Jane, "there are no gooseberries."

"Don't argue, girl!" cried the duchess, furiously; and Garth,
delighted, shook his head at Jane. "When he says 'gooseberry,' he means
anything GREEN, as you very well know!"

Half a dozen people hastened to Tommy with lettuce, water-cress, and
cucumber sandwiches; and Garth picked one blade of grass, and handed it
to Jane; with an air of anxious solicitude; but Jane ignored it.

"No answer, Simmons," said the duchess. "Why don't you go? ... Oh,
how that man waddles! Teach him to walk, somebody! Now the question is,
What is to be done? Here is half the county coming to hear Velma, by my
invitation; and Velma in London pretending to have appendicitis--no, I
mean the other thing. Oh, 'drat the woman!' as that clever bird would
say."

"Hold your jaw!" shouted Tommy. The duchess smiled, and consented to
sit down.

"But, dear Duchess," suggested Garth in his most soothing voice, "the
county does not know Madame Velma was to be here. It was a profound
secret. You were to trot her out at the end. Lady Ingleby called her
your 'surprise packet.'"

Myra came out from behind her garden hat, and the duchess nodded at her
approvingly.

"Quite true," she said. "That was the lovely part of it. Oh, creature!"

"But, dear Duchess," pursued Garth persuasively, "if the county did not
know, the county will not be disappointed. They are coming to listen to
one another, and to hear themselves, and to enjoy your claret-cup and
ices. All this they will do, and go away delighted, saying how cleverly
the dear duchess, discovers and exploits local talent."

"Ah, ha!" said the duchess, with a gleam in the hawk eye, and a raising
of the hooked nose-which Mrs. Parker Bangs of Chicago, who had met the
duchess once or twice, described as "genuine Plantagenet"--"but they
will go away wise in their own conceits, and satisfied with their own
mediocre performances. My idea is to let them do it, and then show them
how it should be done."

"But Aunt 'Gina," said Jane, gently; "surely you forget that most of
these people have been to town and heard plenty of good music, Madame
Velma herself most likely, and all the great singers. They know they
cannot sing like a pri