I like the library--bookshelves, not too high, all about it, and the glow of the open fire and the smiling faces. Sometimes I grow impatient of Aunt's fussy kindness, and of the slavish worship of limp and characterless Milly and Ethel; but last night I was glad to be walled about with cousins, barricaded from the big, curious world. I could have hugged Boy, who lay curled on the hearth, deep in the adventures of Mowgli and the Wolf Brethren. I did hug little Joy, who climbed into my lap, lisping, as she does every night: "Thing, Cothin Nelly." I looked shyly at Mr. Hynes, who had stooped to pat the cat that purred against his leg, muttering something about a "fine animal." I knew--I begin to understand him so well--just how he felt the charm of everything. "Thing," Joy insisted, putting up a baby hand until it touched my cheek and twined itself in my hair, "Thing, Cothin Nelly." And I crooned while breathlessly all in the room listened:-- "Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the Western sea-- "He'll be a bad man, won't he, Joy," I broke off, as John came to my corner, "if he scolds a poor girl who has had to stand on the floor all day for the scholars to look at, and get no good mark on her deportment card?" "I am no longer a schoolmaster, Nelly," said John so icily that Aunt looked up at him, surprised. "Come, Joy," she said, "Cousin Nelly can't be troubled with a great big girl. Why, Mr. Burke, she's cried herself ill, fairly, over those dreadful newspapers. I do so hope they'll leave her in peace now. But of course we tell her it's all meant as a tribute." "Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon and blow-- Blow him again to me, While my little Joy, while my pretty Joy sleeps." "Thing more about your little Joy! More about me." The sleepy child cuddled closer and, as I continued to sing, I knew that at least one person in the room understood that a creature so blessed as I could never cry herself ill. "Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the West--" "Milly and I have tributes, too," laughed Ethel. "The _Trumpet_ says we're just as charming girls as our wonderful cousin. And the _Record_ prints snapshots at Joy and her nursemaid. Aren't newspapers funny?" "Some one of us should be running for office," said Uncle Timothy. "It seems gratuitous to subject an unambitious private family to the treatment expected by a candidate or a multi-millionaire. Yet I have seldom had occasion to complain of the press. In its own perhaps headlong manner, it pursues such matters as are of greatest public importance. A household, to avoid its attentions, should be provided with good, plain, durable countenances. The difficulty with this family is its excess of attraction." He patted Aunt's hand affectionately, while I sang:-- "--Under the silver moon Sleep, my little Joy, sleep, my pretty Joy, sleep--" "--but, Uncle, what shall I do?"