'Here, Leander, go and call your father, or you'll be late for school again, an' your teacher'll be sending in more complaints. 'Bout all them teachers is good for anyway--settin' like ladies twiddling at the leaves of a book, an' thinkin' themselves somethin' fine because they know a few words of Latin, an' can figure with an _x_. Algebry is all very fine in its way, but I guess plain arithmetic is good enough for most folks. It's all I was brought up on, an' the multiplication table has kept me on a level with the majority.' Pauline smiled to herself, as she cut generous slices of pumpkin pie to go with the doughnuts and bread and butter in the different dinner pails. That was just what tired her; being 'on a level with the majority.' The long morning wore itself away. Pauline toiled bravely over the endless array of pinafores which the youthful Hardings managed to make unpresentable in a week. 'Monotony even in gingham!' she murmured; for Polly's were all of pink check, Lemuel's blue, and Leander's a dull brown. 'Saves sortin',' had been the brief response, when she had suggested varying the colours in order to cultivate the aesthetic instinct in the wearers. 'But, Mrs Harding,' she remonstrated, 'they say now that it is possible for even wall-paper to lower the moral tone of a child, and lead to crime----' Her step-mother turned on her a look of withering scorn. 'If your hifalutin' people mean to say that if I don't get papering to suit their notions, I will make my boys thieves an' liars, then it's well for us the walls is covered with sensible green paint that'll wash. To-morrow is killing time, an' next week we must try out the tallow. You can be as aesthetic as you're a mind to with the head-cheese and candles.' Pauline never attempted after that to elevate the moral tone of her step-brothers. Her father came in at supper-time with a letter. He handed it over to her as she sat beside him. 'It's from your uncle Robert, my dear, in Boston. His folks think it's time they got to know their cousin.' 'Well, I hope they're not comin' trailin' down here with their city airs,' said Mrs Harding shortly. 'I've got enough people under my feet as it is.' 'You needn't worry, mother, I don't think Sleepy Hollow would suit Robert's family--they're pretty lively, I take it, and up with the times. They'd find us small potatoes not worth the hoeing.' He sighed as he spoke. Did he remember how Pauline's mother had drooped and died from this very dulness? Was he glad to have her child escape? 'Well, I don't see how there's any other way for them to get acquainted,' retorted his wife. 'Pawliney can't be spared to go trapesing up to Boston. Her head's as full of nonsense now as an egg is of meat, an' she wouldn't know a broom from a clothes-wringer after she'd been philandering round a couple of months with people that are never satisfied unless they're peeking into something they can't understand.'