On the other side of Number 12 Cherry Street Mrs. Canary was seated on the doorstep with the Baby and the Other Baby in her lap. It had been a hard day for Mrs. Canary, for there had been an unusual amount of deferred mending and cleaning as a grand round up for the Sabbath. But now that the supper was over, she felt at liberty to draw her first breath in the cool Spring air, while her oldest daughter, Holly Belle, assisted by Ginevra, commonly known as "Jinny," cleared away the remains of the evening meal. On the sidewalk in front of the house, Launcelot and Fridoline were quarrelling over a catapult, while little Mike, sitting on the gate post, was adding his shrill voice to the general tumult. Mrs. Canary, who was a great lover of romance and revelled in the lurid pages of the _Hearthside Companion_ and kindred publications was responsible for the high-sounding names of her children from Holly Belle to Fridoline. When little Mike had arrived on the scene, however, Policeman Canary had put his foot down on the cherished proposition to name the boy Lorenzo. "You've done yer duty by all the rest of 'em," he said, "an' you've named 'em a-plenty. Their own father has to call 'em 'say' when he speaks to 'em. This one'll be Mike." And Mike he was. Owing to this difference of opinion between the heads of the household, the two latest arrivals were still known as the "Baby," and the "Other Baby." But Mrs. Canary, in spite of her romantic tendencies and slip-shod ways, was a loving wife and mother, and had done her easy-going best to make her husband and children comfortable. Years of poverty and toil and trouble had not destroyed the zest of living for her, nor altered her naturally sweet disposition. Mrs. Canary hushed the two babies upon her breast, and rocked slowly back and forth, making an improvised cradle of her body. Night came late in Cherry Street during the month of May, but the dusk of the evening already enveloped the tiny porch. The night wind blew in coldly across the lake. But Mrs. Canary, oblivious to the chill in the air and the growing darkness, continued to read aloud, in her eager absorption, from a folded paper held above the children: "'Two gleam-ing eyes looked out from the thick-et upon the moonlit path, where the beautiful Lady Gab-ri-ell-e paced to and fro with her lover. The moonlight shone full upon her robe of shimmering satin, thickly en-crusted with pearls, and sparkled in the diamonds that looped her fair tresses. Lionel Mont-fort bent ten-der-ly over her. Burning love was written in every line of his handsome face, and all thoughts of future en-grand-dise-ment were forgotten for the nonce. "Darling," he murmured, "I have found my affinity, and nothing shall come between us. Let my Lady mother rave,--nothing now shall per-suade me to marry the countess."