“I’m to do lessons with them,” said Beth rather sadly. “Aunt Alida said that she didn’t want me to lose a whole winter’s study, so of course I’ll do what she likes me to, but I’m scared. Natalie and Alys speak French, Frieda!” “Well, I’m sure you speak English enough to make up for it,” said Frieda, puzzling Beth by this indirect tribute to her unconscious quaintness, the result of a life spent with eccentric Aunt Rebecca, and with the books which were the little girl’s preferred comrades. Beth went down the broad stairs and hesitatingly found her way to the door of the rose-hued breakfast room. It was a morning room, flooded by the early sunshine; it was more beautiful seen by the strong eastern light for which its colors were planned than it had been under the electricity. Beth stopped on its threshold, forgetting to salute the assembled family. “It looks like ‘Brightest and best of the sons of the morning’!” she cried. “Beth, what do you mean?” demanded Natalie. Beth’s uncle put down his paper to listen to her answer. “The hymn, you know,” explained Beth, “and the room; it’s so--so, as if it would ‘shine on our darkness,’ you know, when you come into it from the hall.” Riggs, the butler, with the greatest difficulty suppressed a smile which would have been so unbecoming to his office that it would, so to speak, have unbutlered him if he had not been able to prevent its coming. Happily he succeeded, but Aunt Alida laughed, and Uncle Jim shouted, though Beth could not see anything amusing. “Here’s your place, beside your old uncle; come and take it, little Puritan,” he cried. “Do you know what you are, Beth?” “Yes, but not what you mean I am,” said Beth, unexpectedly, with a twinkle exactly like her uncle’s in her own blue eyes. “You are a Survival and an Anomaly,” said Uncle Jim gravely. “Oh, dear!” said Beth, pretending to sigh, appreciating these formidable words as fun, even though she could not understand them. “You are a Survival of our grandmother’s day, and consequently an Anomaly in modern Gotham,” explained Uncle Jim, without letting light upon the subject. “Don’t you like grape fruit, little S. and A.?” “It is a little bitter,” said Beth trying to keep from shuddering as she spoke. “It is like adversity, has a certain bitterness, yet sweet are its uses. Riggs, take Miss Elizabeth’s fruit and pass her Master Dirk’s jam. Dirk doesn’t like grape fruit either, Beth,” said this gay uncle, whose boyishly breezy manner was a delightful surprise in a full-grown man. “Is that all of Dirk’s name, Uncle Jim? It--isn’t it a New York way of saying Dick?” asked Beth. “No, indeed!” cried Uncle Jim. “That is a Dutch name. Don’t you know, my dear, that we are of Holland Dutch descent, and are immensely proud of it?”