and as the family gathered
around the table for this, the merriest hour of the whole day, the
President suddenly clapped his hand against his pockets, searched
rapidly through them, and finally brought forth a crumpled sheet of
paper, daubed with many ink blots and tipsy hieroglyphics, which read,
"No more beggars, tramps and vagabuns allowed on these promises. We have
already given away enuf to keep a army. There are two dogs and two men
in this family--so bewair!"

Even the presence of Peace, the author, did not prevent an explosion of
delighted shrieks from the little company, but the child merely fixed
her brown eyes, somber with reproof, upon the perfectly grave face of
the Doctor of Laws, and demanded, "Now, grandpa, what made you take it
down?"

"I didn't, child," he defended. "It had blown down, I think, and lodged
about the door-knob. I thought it was a hand-bill, and rescued it as I
came in."

"Where had you put it?" asked Cherry, grinning superciliously at the
distorted characters on the soiled paper.

"On the side of the house by the front door," she confessed. "That's
where I put that one."

"That one! Are there more?" laughed Frances, whose affection for this
original bit of femininity had only increased with the months of their
acquaintance.

"Of course! There had to be one for each door, 'cause the beggars don't
all go the back way, and to be sure everyone saw the tag, I stuck one on
the corner of the barn nearest the road, and another on each gate. That
surely ought' to be enough, oughtn't it?"

"I should think so," Mrs. Campbell agreed, making a wry face at thought
of the queer-looking signs scattered so liberally about the property
"How did you come to make them?"

"'Cause of that beggar at the front door this afternoon," Allee
volunteered unexpectedly.

"What beggar?" asked the President with interest, while Gail and Frances
exchanged knowing glances.

"A teenty, crooked, old woman came to the house while grandma was out
this afternoon," Peace began. "She looked as if she might be a witch or
old Grandmother, Tipsy-toe--I never did like that game--"

"We thought she _was_ a witch," again Allee spoke up, unmindful of the
frown on her older sister's face; "and we hid."

"But we watched her," Peace continued hastily, "and saw Gail give her
some money. She did look awful forlorny and squizzled up as if she never
had enough to eat to make any meat on her bones, and she nearly tumbled
over