it to them, and ‘Now, children,’ I said, ’what do you think of that for the chick that your Easter egg hatched?’ And they said it was the most beautiful bonnet they had ever seen, and it would just exactly suit mamma.  But I saw they were holding something back, and I said, sharply, ‘Well?’ and they both guiltily faltered out:  ’The bird, you know, papa,’ and I remembered that they belonged to the society of Bird Defenders, who in that day were pledged against the decorative use of dead birds or killing them for anything but food.  ‘Why, confound it,’ I said, ‘the bird is the very thing that makes it an Easter-egg chick!’ but I saw that their honest little hearts were troubled, and I said again:  ‘Confound it!  Let’s go in and hear what the milliner has to say.’  Well, the long and short of it was that the milliner tried a bunch of forget-me-nots over the bluebird that we all agreed was a thousand times better, and that if it were substituted would only cost three dollars more, and we took our Easter-egg chick home in a blaze of glory, the children carrying the bandbox by the string between them.

“Of course we had a great time opening it, and their mother acted her part so well that I knew she was acting, and after the little ones were in bed I taxed her with it.  ‘Know?  Of course I knew!’ she said.  ’Did you think they would let you deceive me?  They’re true New-Englanders, and they told me all about it last night, when I was saying their prayers with them.’  ‘Well,’ I said, ’they let you deceive me; they must be true Westerners, too, for they didn’t tell me a word of your knowing.’  I rather had her there, but she said:  ‘Oh, you goose—­’ We were young people in those days, and goose meant everything.  But, really, I’m ashamed of getting off all this to you hardened bachelors, as I said before—­”

“If you tell many more such stories in this club,” Minver said, severely, “you won’t leave a bachelor in it.  And Rulledge will be the first to get married.”

THE END