Recently the boys have been absorbed in their little printing press, which they have established in my attic corner, the present working motive having come from the card announcing Sylvia’s marriage to the world in general, according to Mr. Latham’s desire.  Richard secured one of these and busied himself an entire morning in setting it in type, for the first time in his experience getting the capitals and small letters in their proper places.  The result was so praiseworthy that Evan hunted up a large box of ornamental cards for them in town, and for two days they have been “filling orders” for every one in the household.

I print the names they wish to copy very distinctly in big letters.  Richard does the type-setting, which is altogether too slow work for Ian, who, as pressman, does the inking and printing, and in the process has actually learned his tardy letters.  As to the distributing and cleaning of the type, I find a little assistance is gratefully accepted, even by patient Richard, whose dear little pointed fingers by this time have become tired, and fumble.

To-day, having exhausted the simple family names, they have tried combinations and experiments with the words Mr., Mrs., and Miss, much to their own amusement, “Miss Timothy Saunders” being considered a huge joke.

Suddenly Ian looked up with one of his most compelling, whimsical smiles, and said, “Barbara, grandpop’s Mrs. was grandma, and she’s in heaven, but where is Mrs. Uncle Martin?”

Rather startled, I said that I didn’t know,—­that there had never been any Mrs. Uncle Martin.

“Why not?” persisted Ian, an answer that is simply an acknowledgment of ignorance never being accepted by a child.  Before I could think Richard chirped out:  “But Aunt Lavinia hasn’t any Mr. for her card neiver, and Martha, she said the other day that there was a Mr. and a Mrs. for everybody, only sometimes they couldn’t find each other for ever so long.  She told that to Effie, and I heard her.”

A short pause, and then Ian jumped up, clapping his hands with joy, as the solution of the problem flashed across him.

“I know what’s happened, Barbara; maybe Uncle Martin’s Mrs. and Aunt Lavinia’s Mr. has gone and got lost together, and some day they’ll find it out and bring each ovver back!  Do you think they will, so we can have some more weddings and pink ice cream, and couldn’t we hurry up and help find them?  I guess we better print him some Mrs. cards so as in case.”

I had drifted into gardening work on paper again, and I believe I said that he had better ask Uncle Martin what he thought about the matter, and at that moment the bell rang for luncheon.

The ringing of bells for meals in this house is what Lavinia Dorman calls “a relic of barbarism,” that she greatly deplores; but as I tell her, our family gathers from so many points of the compass that if the maid announced the meals, she would have to be gifted with the instinct of a chaser of strayed freight cars.