"The gong, the gong at last!" cries Pauline, springing to her feet. "I didn't know I was so hungry until its welcome music smote my ears. Come along, family." They need no second bidding. In two minutes the grove is free from their boisterous presence, and they are flying across the lawn, their mongrel but beloved kennel barking, yelping, and scampering enthusiastically around, making the autumn noon hideous. * * * * * "What's for dinner?" "Rabbits!" "Rabbits! Ye gods--again! Why, this is the fourth day this week that we've fared on their delectable flesh!" cries Robert, striding into the dining-room in grim disgust. "At this rate we'll soon clear Higgins's warren for him!" chimes in Hal. "Aunt Jo, let me say grace to-day, will you?" "Certainly, my dear," Aunt Jo responds, somewhat surprised at the request. She is a mild, sheep faced old gentlewoman, with weary eyes that within the last two years have rained tears almost daily. Pauline folds her slim sunburnt hands, bows her head, and murmurs reverently-- "Of rabbits young, of rabbits old, Of rabbits hot, of rabbits cold, Of rabbits tender, rabbits tough, We thank thee, Lord, we've had enough!" "Amen!" respond the family, in full lugubrious choir. "I wonder if I shall know the flavor of butcher's meat if I ever taste it again?" says Robert presently, with exaggerated exertion hacking a cumbrous limb that covers his cracked plate--a plate which a china-collector would have treasured in a cabinet. "You certainly won't taste butcher's meat again until the butcher's bill is paid," answers Aunt Jo sharply. "Thirteen pounds eleven and sixpence--so he sent me word when Sarah tried to get a mutton-chop for Lottie the day she was so ill. Until his bill is paid, he won't trust us with another pound of flesh; that was the message he sent to me--to me--Josephine Darcy! Oh that I should live to receive such a message from a tradesman! What would my dear uncle the bishop have felt if he could have heard it?" "But he can't hear it, auntie dear," says Lottie, consolingly. "He's dead, you know." "Not dead, but gone before," reproves Miss Darcy, burying her face in her handkerchief. "Water-works again!" groans Robert, _sotto voce_. "Use the plug, some one." Addie obeys the elegant order by slipping her arm round the old lady's neck. "There, there, dear; don't take on so. You fret too much about us; you'll make yourself ill in the end. Cheer up, auntie dear, cheer--"