The blackbirds were my principal guests that morning, a sanctimonious crew in sleek black coats, solemn, censorious, and self-satisfied to the last degree. All birds which walk instead of hopping are awkward-looking; but none are as preposterous as the blackbirds, because none of them put on such sanctified airs. As they moved about this morning, their heads thrust meekly forward, ducking modestly as they stepped, they appeared to be meditating on their neighbors’ sins. But they had their tribe’s keen eye for the main chance, and it was a swift bird and a wary one which secured a big crumb with these feathered Chadbands in the yard. I looked up at the sound of wheels and nearly choked with swallowing my laughter. Cousin Chad and Cousin Jane did look so sleek and proper, that as I rose to meet them I could not refrain from throwing some extra crumbs on the grass for possible additions to my breakfasting guests. They descended ponderously and looked at me with the apprehensive scrutiny one might bestow on a lunatic who is liable to break out immediately in a fresh place. “How are you, Lyddy?” inquired Cousin Jane, with sepulchral anxiety. Cousin Chad, busy with the hitching-post, listened with his back as well as with his ears. They both know perfectly that I have always been Lil to everyone except the great-aunts, and that Lyddy has been an abomination to the entire family connection, and especially to me, since they first invented it in my childhood. That is why they stick to it. They believe in chastenings, do my cousins, the Grackles—particularly when they are the chasteners. “I’m perfectly well,” I answered, with added emphasis to my usual formula. “Come and sit down. There’s no need to ask how you and Cousin Chad are; you look the picture of health.” “Appearances don’t do to go by, Lyddy,” she answered solemnly, sinking ponderously on a creaking campstool. “Chadwell’s been havin’ sciatica, and I’ve stayed awake nights with him till I’m just about worn out. But I’ve never made my afflictions an excuse for shirkin’ my duty. We came over to say that as you seem to be without a roof over your heads we’d take you to board till your house is finished—if it ever is.” She glanced contemptuously at the amorphous piles of building material just beyond us. “You can have the second spare bed-room upstairs,” put in Cousin Chad. “It’s more to my interest to put you in the front one; but livin’ comes high any way you take it, and I want to consider you. I reckon John ain’t able to spend much, with all this building on hand. The back room’s small, but you three can make out in it. If you want the other, of course it will cost more. You can come over this evening after John gets home, and he and I can settle the terms after supper.” I kept my face quite straight, and made a handsome contribution to current fiction.