"Ah," moaned the welcomed mistress to her following husband and daughters, "in former years my butler and housekeeper would have received me, and with their clothes all on" (the girls choked audibly), "but," sighed Mrs. Lawton, "that was before your poor misguided father had lost everything for us!" "Including the servants' clothes," whispered Dorothy, and with a "Poor papa!" each girl gave him a pat on the arm as, passing him by, they took hold of their mother, and with much loving bustle got her bonnet and veil and gloves and beady mantle off and put her into the only chair yet brought into the house, where, with a soap-box beneath her feet, she could sit and comfortably give directions that no one heeded, and scold people who were unconscious that they were the objects of her wrath. Some shades were up, two carpets were down, and a gruesome old piano stood, glooming, from one end of the sitting-room, before the girls would consent to have lunch, for, said Sybil, "That piano, that noble instrument of perfect tone and action, standing outside on the grass, was a direct challenge to Heaven to send down rain." "My dear," mildly remonstrated Mr. Lawton, "don't be sarcastic." "John!" interrupted Mrs. Lawton, "I don't see why you should accuse the child of being sarcastic. You must remember that in about the seventies some of our greatest pianists sat before that instrument, which was one of my many wedding gifts, and Sybil very reasonably called it a piano of perfect tone and action. You should not be so ready to criticise your children, John. Oh, I do hope that tea is going to be strong, my dears, for I am positively beyond speech." A declaration which lost considerable of its force when she continued to describe the glorious past of her rosewood monster, until she was silenced momentarily by a cup of strong tea. For, camping in all the wild confusion of boxes and bundles, they proceeded to enjoy a luncheon of bread and butter and chipped dried beef, with the soul-reviving accompaniment of fragrant though forbidden green tea. Just as Mrs. Lawton, groaning over the thickness of the bread, was starting out to describe the transparent thinness of the slices cut by some bondwoman of the past, Lena, all smiles, came tramping in with a boiled egg in a shaving-mug: "Youst for de mistress," she announced, and placed the mug on that lady's knee. "Dat's youst laid fresh dis minute alretty. Wat you t'ink of dat, eh?" "But--but!" flustered Mr. Lawton, "that doesn't belong to us--we have no hens!" "No," acquiesced Lena, "but dot hen she nest on us--so I tak' dot egg!" "Well, that's dishonest!" declared Mr. Lawton. "Nein! nein!" contradicted Lena, who always grew more German in excitement: "Uf it is tree egg--four--six egg, dot may make of de steal--but youst one eggs only pay for de use of de nest!" And Lena made a triumphant exit to the laughter of the girls and a thrill of song from the canary on the mantel-piece, who dearly loved a noise.