Ethel being the only one inclined to hold back, and she being of a yielding nature, they all followed the woman indoors, and were ushered presently into a little sitting-room next the kitchen. It was a poorly furnished, but neat and pleasant apartment, with snow-white curtains, worn haircloth furniture, and a parlor organ, and with a sewing machine in one corner. Freddy came in after the rest, a huge ring of a cruller firmly grasped in one hand, and another of more elongated proportions thrust deeply down his throat. The woman followed immediately with the dish, and her cordially repeated invitation to “try ’em” was gladly accepted. Jasper possessed himself of a magnificent specimen, and loudly sang the praises of itself and donor, pleasing himself immensely by an ingenious combination of “try ’em” and “fry ’em.” Ethel glanced at him reproachfully, feeling a pang of shame that he should persist in his joking in the face of this kindly hospitality. But Jasper was not to be stopped at such a time. Nor did Kitty seem disposed to be prudent. She was, as she herself might have expressed it, gradually working up to “concert pitch”; and she and Jasper, evidently, were having a much better time with their singing than they had while they were in the boat. Kitty also sought to celebrate in song the virtues of the crullers, even venturing upon a little parody wherein “sweet crullers” was substituted for “sweet home,” and “crumble” for “humble,” which, absolutely nonsensical as it may have been, caused Jasper to go off in fits of laughter and clap his hand upon his knee and cry “capital!” in utter violation of his vow. And then Freddy sang, too, and even Ethel sang; and they all got to laughing harder and harder, with that absurd, unreasonable laughter that laughs at almost anything, and that the more it laughs, the more it will laugh, until by and by it grows to be quite uncontrollable. All of which, the writer is aware, was exceedingly silly and ridiculous on the part of these young people whom he has introduced to the reader; but he begs the latter to remember that they were only boys and girls after all, and that they were really a little beside themselves that morning, and that, at any rate, no single one of them meant a particle of real harm by it. The only person who preserved her countenance was their hostess. That problem of a woman went in and out among them, never so much as smiling at anything that was said or done, watching them closely with her small, sharp eyes, always seeming to be “making them out,” but letting no sign of any conclusion to which she might have come find its way into her face. At length Ethel, thinking to quiet things, glanced toward the organ and asked respectfully (though to music, of course) if she might “try the instrument.”