“Polly, why can’t you try to please you cousin, and not be so stingy with your things?”

“My hands are soapy,” she apologized, “and—­”

“Well, don’t you know enough to wipe them?” snapped Aunt Jane.  “You seem to have grown very helpless.”

“Say, what are these blue stones in here?” queried Katie, turning the locket curiously.

“Turquoises,” Polly answered, eyeing with fear Katie’s rough handling.

“Whose picture is this?” was the next question.  “Stop, you Gregory—­you’ll break it!  Mamma, shant’ he stop pulling it so?”

“Yes, Gregory, you just wait, like a good boy, till your sister’s seen it; then you can take it.”

Polly trembled.  Her beautiful locket and chain in Gregory’s dirty fingers!

“You have n’t told me who this is,” complained Katie.

“Burton Leonard.”

“It’s the kid she sung to,” added the mother; “the one the paper told about.”

“Oh!” cried Katie.  “What big eyes he’s got!” And she snapped the locket together.

“Now it’s my turn!” asserted Maude, snatching the pretty thing from her sister’s hand.

Gregory burst into a wail.

“Yer said I could have it next!” he lamented.

“Let him take it!” urged the mother.  But Maude only clasped the chain about her own neck, and danced off to the looking-glass over the sink.

“Yer mean old thing!” screamed Gregory.

“Come get it, Greg!” Sophia darted towards her sister.

“When yer do, let me know!” jeered Maude, eluding their outstretched hands, and putting a chair between them and herself.

A short skirmish was followed by a chase around the room, until their mother interposed.

“Gracious me!  What a hubbub!  Maude Simpson, bring that locket to me this minute!”

“It was n’t my fault at all!” whimpered Maude, taking off the chain and dropping it in her mother’s lap.

“There’s never no peace when you kids are in the house!” grumbled the woman, tossing aside her work, and disappearing in the next room.

“What yer done with it?” whined Gregory, as she came back with empty hands.

“I’ve put it where you won’t find it in a hurry,” she answered tartly.  “Now hustle outdoors, the whole of you, and don’t show your heads in here again till supper time!”

Polly drew a breath of relief, as the last Simpson vanished.  She had forgotten how turbulent the children were.

When the dishes were out of the way began Polly’s first lesson in sewing buttons to cards, and to Aunt Jane’s delight she could soon do the work quickly and well.

“You’ll be quite a help,” was the commendation that brought a little solace to her sore heart.  “Thank goodness, you’re quieter than my own kids!”

So passed the afternoon, until came supper and the new uncle.

Polly had been helping set the table, when the door opened, and a little, thin-featured man stepped softly in.