us fellows music lessons?
Somebody wants me to play, and I 'd rather learn of you than any Senor
Twankydillo," said Tom, who did n't find the conversation interesting.

"Oh, yes; if any of you boys honestly want to learn, and will behave
yourselves, I 'll take you; but I shall charge extra," answered Polly,
with a wicked sparkle of the eye, though her face was quite sober, and
her tone delightfully business-like.

"Why, Polly, Tom is n't a boy; he 's twenty, and he says I must treat
him with respect. Besides, he 's engaged, and does put on such airs,"
broke in Maud who regarded her brother as a venerable being.

"Who is the little girl?" asked Polly taking the news as a joke.

"Trix; why, did n't you know it?" answered Maud, as if it had been an
event of national importance.

"No! is it true, Fan?" and Polly turned to her friend with a face full
of surprise, while Tom struck an imposing attitude, and affected absence
of mind.

"I forgot to tell you in my last letter; it 's just out, and we don't
like it very well," observed Fanny, who would have preferred to be
engaged first herself.

"It 's a very nice thing, and I am perfectly satisfied," announced Mrs.
Shaw, rousing from a slight doze.

"Polly looks as if she did n't believe it. Have n't I the appearance
of 'the happiest man alive'?" asked Tom, wondering if it could be pity
which he saw in the steady eyes fixed on him.

"No, I don't think you have," she said, slowly.

"How the deuce should a man look, then?" cried Tom, rather nettled at
her sober reception of the grand news.

"As if he had learned to care for some one a great deal more than for
himself," answered Polly, with sudden color in her cheeks, and a sudden
softening of the voice, as her eyes turned away from Tom, who was the
picture of a complacent dandy, from the topmost curl of his auburn head
to the tips of his aristocratic boots.

"Tommy 's quenched; I agree with you, Polly; I never liked Trix, and
I hope it 's only a boy-and-girl fancy, that will soon die a natural
death," said Mr. Shaw, who seemed to find it difficult to help falling
into a brown study, in spite of the lively chatter going on about him.

Shaw, Jr., being highly incensed at the disrespectful manner in
which his engagement was treated, tried to assume a superb air of
indifference, and finding that a decided failure, was about to stroll
out of the room with a comprehensive nod, when his mother called after
him: "Where are