"Or we might try Mother Goose," again came the pleading voice. "We needn't speak after tonight--rather after this dinner. We can't, in fact, if I'm going home tomorrow! Shouldn't we make some effort to keep from spoiling the others' good time?" Going home tomorrow? She had not heard of that! What would become of the railroad? What would become--but nothing mattered except the railroad! Was he acute enough to reason that he could move her by this threat, she wondered? And if he were, and if she yielded, would he not use it as a weapon for future forgivenesses, when he might again be taking her for his sister--something which he did not possess? This idea sealed her determination. Yet, on second thought she relented--oh, it could scarcely be called relenting--just a wee bit and, still looking steadfastly down at her plate, in a monotonous voice, said: "Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard." "Fine!" he laughed, but she quietly interrupted him: "Nothing but Mother Goose--and, after this evening, nothing, ever!" He drew a wry face, murmuring: "Little Jack Sprite is very contrite, and wants to make up with his lady!" She puzzled a moment over Little Jack Sprite. It did not seem quite relevant to the nursery classic which, only a few years back, she had read many times to Bip. "That isn't Mother Goose," she finally stated. "I shan't do this any more." "But it is," he protested, "and I'll show it to you in the book! They were reading Mother Goose to me long after you lost interest in it." There was no rise to this, and he cautiously added: "My poor brain, while ages older, has never developed up to yours. Do you know any rhymes, at all?" Silence. She looked again at Dale and found him listening to Ann. Again the Colonel proved unpromising. One slight remark was entirely lost on someone else, and Miss Liz offered more remote possibilities than before. After the situation recommenced its torture, rather wearily she said to her plate: "Hey, diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon." "I love that one," he whispered, and, taking up her meter, continued: "The little dog howled, and the pretty girl scowled, but promised to make up soon! That's the second verse." Another silence, but not so prolonged, when her voice reached him: "Brent, Brent, the rich man's son, broke his word and away he run!" "Heart," he corrected. "'Broke his heart,' is the way that goes!" The silence was desperate now, and, after he had exhausted many forms of pleading, she simply said: "Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town!" "I don't think it's nice to be so personal in our Mother Goose party," he reproved her. "However, if you insist--" "But I don't insist!" He shrugged his shoulders. "I was just going to repeat: 'There was a little boy and a little girl lived in an alley.' Will you finish it out?"