“Honor, how morbid you are getting on that subject!” cried Victoria, while Katherine laughed somewhat bitterly. “If they are nice, I shall be glad to know them, and so will you. Do cheer up a bit,” she added, rising as she spoke. “I am going to find Peter now and see how they are progressing with the mushroom bed. Don’t worry, Honor. It will all come right some day. “Jog on, jog on the footpath way, And merrily hent the stile—a.’” The sisters heard the fresh young voice as Victoria, having put on her jacket again, departed in search of Peter. Katherine seated herself at the piano, as she was apt to do when under any stress of emotion, and Honor went to her own room. She was determined that no one should see her cry if she could help it, but life was at present very disheartening, let Victoria suggest and sing as she would. Vic on her way to the barn met Sophy, and together they sought their brother. They found him sitting with Dave Carney in the harness-room. “Oh, come along in,” said he with unexpected cordiality, while Carney rose from the box upon which he was seated, and Sirius rapped a welcome on the floor with his long tail. The oddest part of Sirius’s somewhat grotesque appearance was the great length of his tail. “We were just talking about the mushroom bed, and we can’t decide whether to have it in the cellar, or in the shed, or in the barn, or out of doors. Of course you don’t really know any more about it, Vic, than I do, but what do you think?” “Did you send for the books?” asked his sister, as she seated herself. “Yes, and they came by the noon mail. A lot about edible mushrooms, and here it tells how to raise them,” said Peter, giving her two or three pamphlets which he had been studying. He had, upon the suggestion of the florist at Fordham, sent to Washington for these pamphlets, which were printed and published by the Department of Agriculture. “I really believe it is going to be a good thing, Vic. They seem easy to raise, and I shouldn’t wonder if there was money in them. We might live on them ourselves, and save butcher’s bills. You know the Chinese eat them a lot.” “Yes, I know,” responded Victoria, although somewhat doubtfully; “but then it always seems as if the Chinese ate such queer things—mice, for instance. I don’t think I should like to copy the Chinese.” “Pooh! You don’t really believe that they eat mice, do you?” said Peter, with lofty scorn. “A lot is made up about the Chinese, because we don’t really know much about them. But they do a large business in mushrooms, or ‘edible fungi,’ as they are called. They import them from Japan and Tahiti, and even from Australia and New Zealand. They make soup out of fungus in China; and do you know in New Zealand they eat a fungus that grows out of the body of a big caterpillar.”