“Yes, that would scarcely make him ill,” and King gave Cousin Jack a portion of one small croquette, which he ate up at once, and found to be merely an aggravation.

“Oh, no! no pie for Edward,” said Marjorie, when a delicious lemon meringue made its appearance.  “Pie is entirely unsuitable for children!  He may have a nice baked apple.”

And Mr. Maynard was plucky enough to eat his baked apple without a murmur, for he remembered that often he had advised Mrs. Maynard against giving the children pie.

To be sure, the pie would not harm the grown people, but Mr. Maynard had agreed to “play the game,” and it was his nature to do thoroughly whatever he undertook.

CHAPTER XIX

MORE FUN

“Now, Helen,” said Marjorie, as they left the dining-room, “you must practise for an hour.”

“Oh, Mother, I don’t feel a bit like it!  Mayn’t I skip it to-day?”

This was, in effect, a speech that Marjorie often made, and she had to laugh at her mother’s mimicry.

But she straightened her face, and said, “No, my child; you must do your practising, or you won’t be ready for your lesson when the teacher comes to-morrow.”

“All right, Mother,” said Mrs. Maynard, cheerfully, and sitting down at the piano, she began to rattle off a gay waltz.

“Oh, no, Helen,” remonstrated Marjorie, “that won’t do!  You must play your scales and exercises.  See, here’s the book.  Now, play that page over and over for an hour.”

Marjorie did hate those tedious “exercises,” and she was glad for her mother to see how poky it was to drum at them for an hour.  As a rule, Marjorie did her practising patiently enough, but sometimes she revolted, and it made her chuckle to see Mrs. Maynard carefully picking out the “five-finger drills.”

“Keep your hands straight, Helen,” she admonished her mother.  “Keep the backs of them so level that a lead pencil wouldn’t roll off.  I’ll get a lead pencil.”

“No, don’t!” exclaimed Mrs. Maynard, in dismay.  She liked to play the piano, but she was far from careful to hold her hands in the position required by Midget’s teacher.

“Yes, I think I’d better, Helen.  If you contract bad habits, it’s so difficult to break them.”

Roguish Marjorie brought a lead pencil, and laid it carefully across the back of her mother’s hand, from which it immediately rolled off.

“Now, Helen, you must hold your hand level.  Try again, dearie, and if it rolls off, pick it up and put it back in place.”

Mrs. Maynard made a wry face, and the other grown-ups laughed, to see the difficulty she experienced with the pencil.

“One—­two—­three—­four,” she counted, aloud.

“Count to yourself, Helen,” said Marjorie.  “It’s annoying to hear you do that!”

This, too, was quoted, for Mrs. Maynard had often objected to the monotonous drone of Marjorie’s counting aloud.