and invested some of the prospective two hundred dollars in a new set of china-the blue onion pattern, a favorite of theirs. "We need a new set anyway," said Carroll. "And, now, they can't complain that they haven't enough dishes," said Mrs. Carroll with housewifely pride. "And we'll turn the key on the dining-room china closet so they can't get at great-grandmother Carter's Spode."

"Why not hide them in the attic?" suggested Fred.

"Because then they couldn't see them!" said Molly shamelessly, and they both laughed.

They were rather short on dining-room chairs, since the children had taken to playing steamboat with them.

"This is a good excuse to get those two in the window of the little shop in Fourth Avenue," urged Fred daringly.

"Do you think we can spare the money?" asked his frugal wife-but her eyes brightened.

"Our trip to the shore can't possibly cost two hundred dollars," he returned, trying to look practical.

They got the chairs. And while making the purchase, they happened to fall in love with a pair of the most charmingly tarnished candlesticks, a remarkable green which would tone in beautifully with the living room. To be sure, they already had dozens of candlesticks but none like these. They felt that they really needed them, especially as the antique dealer said that another customer was coming back for them next Wednesday.

"Now, unpractical people," they told themselves as they marched off with the candlesticks under Fred's arms, "would have been lured into buying that piece of jade, but we weren't!"

They felt so pleased with their selfrestraint that they purchased a half dozen heavy colonial cut-glass goblets. "The Sterlings will need more goblets than we have, anyway," she said apologetically.

"Of course they will," echoed Fred defiantly. "We mustn't be skimpy. We know how it is to have a skimpy landlord."

As the momentous day approached there was a busy time in the Carroll house. Molly cut her engagement to pour tea at the club house and Fred had to stop work, for even the studio, the one untidy spot in

the otherwise immaculate house, was being scrubbed and waxed and polished until it shone. Molly's regular staff was augmented by two extra cleaning-women-two hundred dollars would be more than ample to pay for this and certain electriclight fixtures were repaired which had been allowed to remain out of order for months, in order to keep down the consumption of electricity.

"This is a great thing for the Carroll family," said Fred; "we not only get a profitable sketching trip out of the Sterlings but they are putting our house in such good shape for us."

"I am going to have everything ready well in advance," said Molly, surveying her work with considerable satisfaction, "and then disappear before they arrive. I am reconciled to their coming, because it means so much for you, dear-if I only don't have to see them. I hate them."

"And yet we really oughtn't to hate them," mused Fred, who was quite broadminded, "they're giving us a chance to go and paint sand-dunes."

But they are going to use our things!" Molly reminded him.

"We invited them to do so," returned Fred judiciously; "so they aren't altogether to blame."

"I hate them all the same," said Molly obstinately.

"Molly," whispered Fred, "I do, too!" And for this unchristian sentiment Molly threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

III

Now, it so happened that the feminine members of the Sterling family, their days not being occupied in Wall Street, took it into their heads that it would be a good idea to run out in the machine in the morning instead of waiting for the afternoon train, which would bring the old man and the other heavy luggage. They could lunch at the club and spend the afternoon on the links.

Mrs. Carroll, with an apron on and all unconscious of the approach of the enemy, was caressingly dusting certain precious possessions never entrusted to the unappreciative touch of the servants. There was, for instance, a medieval salt-holder of marble, which they had brought back

from Italy, an odd thing with interesting relief work almost worn smooth by countless generations of handling. They kept it on a table in the living-room, as a combination paper-weight and ash-holder, because the vague carving was very beautiful and shadowy with the reading-lamp shining down upon it. There was also a bit of Venetian mosaic work which, after holding together for centuries in Italy, was finding an American Boynton furnace too much for it. These and other sacred idols she was handling with the deftness and devotion displayed in bathing her babies. She was singing the same cooing song she sung to them.

Hearing an automobile snorting up the drive, she ran, still in her apron, to the door, expecting to see her brother, who often came out to play tennis, and lunched with them when he did so. Her smile of sisterly welcome changed to a look of consternation when she beheld three strange ladies in the tonneau of a new and shining car. "Will you ask Mrs. Carroll if it would be convenient to let Mrs. Sterling leave some hand-baggage here until this afternoon?" asked the eldest of the three ladies. The ladies also looked new and shining. "They think that I am a maid," said Mrs. Carroll to herself with an inward smile. "Mrs. Carroll is not at home," she said, feeling herself blush; "but you may, of course, leave your things."

They began handing them to her. This made her blush still more but she took them.

"Mamma," said one of the girls, "if they've gone already, let's get out and see what the house is like.”

Mrs. Carroll put down the bags. "I believe Mrs. Carroll was not expecting you quite so early," she said, "the house is hardly ready."

"Oh, that doesn't matter," said Mrs. Sterling graciously, "we'll understand," and by this time they were descending, the man in front with the chauffeur, who afterwards proved to be their steward, having jumped out to help them.

"Isn't it a cunning little house!" said one of the daughters, a great strapping girl, as she brushed past the small owner of the little house, who didn't think it little at all. (Sixteen rooms and three baths.) "Just like some of those lodges we saw

in England," replied the other, not quite so strapping, girl. "See, they have vines and diamond panes and everything. Oh, there's a sun-dial, too. I want to look at the sun-dial." So she, at least, ran out again. The others, however, had gone on in and there was nothing for Molly to do but to follow meekly behind.

"It's real cozy," said Mrs. Sterling, looking about with a kindly expression, while Molly shuddered impotently. She particularly loathed the word “cozy” even without the "real," and even when not applied to her home.

'Could we take a look upstairs?" asked the daughter.

"Mrs. Carroll would much prefer your waiting until she is ready to receive you," said Mrs. Carroll with that quiet dignity which made the tradesmen quake.

But the Sterlings did not quake; they had long since ceased to be afraid of servants, even haughty ones. "Oh, we won't mind its being tossed up," said Mrs. Sterling.

"But Mrs. Carroll will," said that lady decisively.

Mrs. Sterling knew a language which appealed to all servants, even the most superior. "Mrs. Carroll needn't know anything about it," she said, and placing a coin on the newel post under Molly's pretty chin, she marched serenely up the stairs, commenting on the pictures on the way.

For a moment Molly was too much astonished to speak, then turning to the manservant, who was carrying in the wraps, "Remove that!" she commanded haughtily, pointing to the twenty-five-cent piece on the newel-post as if it were a spider.

"Sure!" said the man, and he removed it effectively. The grave respect of manner which he had shown towards his mistress had disappeared now that she had gone upstairs, and he ogled Molly with smiling impudence. Her indignation gave way to something like fright. She looked out into the dining-room lined with pictures of ancestors-but they couldn't have helped her even if they had been the originals instead of merely the photographs of family portraits. She glanced up the stairs-but she couldn't appeal to those people. So in a panic she turned and bolted out of her own house.

Half way down the drive she met Fred re

turning from the village with a package of coat-hangers. He was whistling carelessly. "They've come!" she cried, wild-eyed and panting. "They're in our house, they're upstairs!" You might have thought that she referred to the Indians that had harassed some of those same ancestors. "Well, what of it?" asked Fred. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going away-anywhere! I'll never come back."

"If that's the case," said Fred, "I'd take off my apron and put on a hat, if I were you." "My hat's up there! They are there! And there's a button off my coat, too. They'll see it! They didn't give me time to sew it on." And she told him the whole story, but as Fred did not seem to take it very tragically she was also able to laugh by the time she had finished.

"We'll live it down in time," he said. "Suppose you give me that apron and I'll sneak around and give it to Laura with these coat-hangers and tell her to get our things and bring them down to the Parkers'. We'll have to wait there till train time." The Parkers kept a very respectable and rather expensive boarding-house across the meadow from the Carrolls. "Luckily our trunk has gone on ahead." The children, it may be added, had been shipped with the nurse to their grandmother's the day before.

A few minutes later Carroll joined his wife on the Parker porch. She was gazing nervously across the meadow at her beloved desecrated home. 'Never mind," said Fred comfortingly, "think of the wonderful color on those dunes! Think of the fine walks and drives we'll have in the afternoons!"

"Let's take the first train," said Molly. "I want to get out of sight of the house at once. It's awful!"

"So do I," said Fred; "but we haven't got our money yet, and, you know, we've overdrawn our account at the bank!"

"Here comes Laura with our things," announced Molly, jumping up as the fat figure of the ancient negress waddled into view. "Perhaps they've sent the check by Laura. We always paid our rent in ad

she would ask her mistress to come and show him. The Carroll's cook had been sent away immediately after breakfast for a week's vacation (at full pay).

"Indeed, I'll do nothing of the sort!" declared Mrs. Carroll with a glance at her husband.

"Tell him it's a French range," said Carroll with a humorous twinkle, “the kind all the best chefs use."

"And when their cook arrives," put in Mrs. Carroll, relenting, "if he doesn't understand it, tell him where he can find our cook."

"Who is Irish," remarked Fred parenthetically.

"By the way, Laura," asked Mrs. Carroll, hesitatingly, "I hope-do the ladies seem to like the house?"

"Deed, m'm, I ain't heard dem say, but when dey looked in de studio dey begun laughin' fit to kill when dey looked at de picture Mr. Fred made of Miss Molly."

"Laughed, did they?" snorted Fred, sitting up; "what do they know about painting!"

"Deed, I don't know, suh," said the darky departing. "All I know is dat dey kept on gigglin'. Mamma's always makin' brakes,' said one of de young ladies to de other. Den dey goes off in de automobile. I don't know what dey meant."

Molly did. She looked at her husband and blushed.

In a little while Laura came back again. She reported that the other servants had now arrived, a second man and three maids, and that the steward wanted to know if Mrs. Carroll would kindly give him the key to the dining-room china-closet, so that he could get at the rest of the dishes.

"Didn't you show him the whole set of new ones in addition to the old ones in the butler's pantry?" asked Mrs. Carroll.

Laura said that she had, but that they were not enough for the Sterlings.

"We can't let them have the Spode!" cried Molly, aghast, looking at her husband for support.

"Laura," said Fred, "those dishes belonged to a great-grandmother, and—” "Yessuh, I told him so, suh; but he says he don't mind dere being ole fashioned it's only for a week."

"Considerate of him," laughed Fred to his wife.

"And," continued Laura, "he will replace all dey breaks."

"A dozen Mr. Sterlings could not replace those plates," broke out Molly indignantly. "What'll I tell him, m'm?"

"Oh, let him have the keys," flung out Fred in irritation. "Let 'em have everything. What's the use!"

"And then, Laura, please go home," put in Mrs. Carroll. "I don't want you to stay there any longer."

VOL. XLV.-78

Laura looked at the ground. "I promised to stay and help 'em clean up. He says Mrs. Sterling's a most particular lady."

"Clean up! Why, you've been cleaning up for three days," said Molly, outraged in her housewifely pride; "didn't you tell him that?" Molly's lip began to tremble.

"Well, no m'm, he offered me two dollars to stay and I need the money." Laura showed her white teeth in a broad grin. "But I told him," she made haste to add,

717

wagging her head with the true negro retainer's loyalty, "that you was just as fine a lady and just as particular as his missus, even if you does sleep in a white-enamel bed."

Molly looked up. "What's this about the beds!" she asked.

"Nothin', only he says that at all the Sterlings' houses even de help has better beds den yourn. Dey are movin' yourn up to de servants' flo' for de steward to sleep in, an' de ole-fashioned four-poster is goin' to be for the missus."

"Laura," said Mr. Carroll no longer jocular, "tell that man that Mrs. Carroll's bed is not to be used by any of Mr. Sterling's servants—no matter how many he has!" "Yessuh," said Laura chuckling. "An' don't you worry, Miss Molly, you're my people, an' I ain't a goin' to let dose new people hurt nothin' o' yourn," she added as she took her deliberate departure.

Somehow Molly derived a great deal of solace from this. Along with the indignity of the situation, she felt that, at least, she had one thing that millions could not buy, and that was personal affection and loyalty from her servants.

In a little while Laura was back again. "Now, what is it!" thought Mrs. Carroll. "De steward, he's sot de second man to paintin' de scratched places on your bed, m'm. Mrs. Sterling's a most particular lady, he says."

Molly made no comment but to drum on the floor with her foot.

"What of it?" asked Fred.

"Nothin', only I thought I'd better tell you he's usin' your paints, suh." "What!” cried Fred springing out of his chair.

"He says he'll only use a few cents' worth and he'll pay double if you object. Dem's his very words."

"Object!" shouted Fred. "I don't allow anybody to monkey around in my studio, not even Mrs. Carroll. You ought to have told him that, Laura."

"But he's not doin' it in de studio. Dey turned your studio into a servants' diningroom!"

Carroll grabbed his hat with a muttered oath, but was restrained by his wife. "Don't go near the horrid things," she implored

him.

Fred hesitated, mopped his brow, sat

down again, and smiled. "I was only wondering," he said in a changed tone, "if they wouldn't like the key to the trunk where our love-letters are. They might like them to start the fires with. They could easily pay double for what they are worth, you know."

But Molly did not laugh. The chagrin and horror of the whole affair swept over her, and tears welled up in her eyes. She might be able to live this down in time, but she would never forget it. Life would never be as pure and sweet again.

"Never mind," said Fred, "the old man will arrive soon and then he'll send the check by Laura, and," he added seeing that Molly refused to be comforted, "we'll stop off on the way through town and forget all about everything in a grand celebration-we'll have a bully dinner and then go to the theatre afterwards."

But though the old man came that evening, no check was sent, because his secretary attended to such trifling affairs, and his secretary was in town. So the Carrolls ate a miserable dinner at the Parkers' and spent the night in a stuffy room there, the better rooms having already been engaged in advance by people arriving for the horse show.

The next day Fred said, "Shall I go and dun the old man?"

"Decidedly not!" his wife replied. "If they haven't decency enough to do the customary thing, we shan't put ourselves in their class by reminding them of it."

Fred said he failed to see the satisfaction in this feminine revenge, but as Molly was so nervous and unstrung he would humor her. At least that's the way he put it to her. Inwardly he acknowledged that he would rather be shot than dun his tenant.

They hung around the boarding-house all day. His sketching materials had gone with the trunk down to the blessed dunes, and so he could do no work. Nor did they feel like going to the club, now that the horse show had begun, because they had told everyone they were leaving town, and because Molly would be sure to run into Mrs. Sterling who had tipped her. So Fred took it out in reading the Parkers' paper-covered novels, and Molly in gazing resentfully across the meadow at her pre-empted house, where she could see the usurpers having tea in her cups on her terrace.