“Me too?” Monona’s ardent hope, her terrible fear were in her eyebrows, her parted lips.

“You too, certainly.”  Dwight could not do enough for every one.

Monona clapped her hands.  “Goody! goody!  Last time you wouldn’t let me go.”

“That’s why papa’s going to take you this time,” Ina said.

These ethical balances having been nicely struck, Ina proposed another: 

“But,” she said, “but, you must eat more supper or you can not go.”

“I don’t want any more.”  Monona’s look was honest and piteous.

“Makes no difference.  You must eat or you’ll get sick.”

“No!”

“Very well, then.  No ice cream soda for such a little girl.”

Monona began to cry quietly.  But she passed her plate.  She ate, chewing high, and slowly.

“See?  She can eat if she will eat,” Ina said to Dwight.  “The only trouble is, she will not take the time.”

“She don’t put her mind on her meals,” Dwight Herbert diagnosed it.  “Oh, bigger bites than that!” he encouraged his little daughter.

Di’s mind had been proceeding along its own paths.

“Are you going to take Jenny and Bobby too?” she inquired.

“Certainly.  The whole party.”

“Bobby’ll want to pay for Jenny and I.”

“Me, darling,” said Ina patiently, punctiliously—­and less punctiliously added:  “Nonsense.  This is going to be papa’s little party.”

“But we had the engagement with Bobby.  It was an engagement.”

“Well,” said Ina, “I think we’ll just set that aside—­that important engagement.  I think we just will.”

“Papa!  Bobby’ll want to be the one to pay for Jenny and I—­”

“Di!” Ina’s voice dominated all.  “Will you be more careful of your grammar or shall I speak to you again?”

“Well, I’d rather use bad grammar than—­than—­than—­” she looked resentfully at her mother, her father.  Their moral defection was evident to her, but it was indefinable.  They told her that she ought to be ashamed when papa wanted to give them all a treat.  She sat silent, frowning, put-upon.

“Look, mamma!” cried Monona, swallowing a third of an egg at one impulse.  Ina saw only the empty plate.

“Mamma’s nice little girl!” cried she, shining upon her child.

The rules of the ordinary sports of the playground, scrupulously applied, would have clarified the ethical atmosphere of this little family.  But there was no one to apply them.

* * * * *

When Di and Monona had been excused, Dwight asked: 

“Nothing new from the bride and groom?”

“No.  And, Dwight, it’s been a week since the last.”

“See—­where were they then?”

He knew perfectly well that they were in Savannah, Georgia, but Ina played his game, told him, and retold bits that the letter had said.

“I don’t understand,” she added, “why they should go straight to Oregon without coming here first.”