"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Carroll. She looked unusually pretty that night in a mauve gown of some thin, soft, wool material, with her old amethysts. Even her dark hair seemed to get amethystine shadows, and her eyes, too. Carroll regarded her admiringly. "Amy, darling, you do get lovelier every day," he said. The others laughed and echoed him with fond merriment. "Doesn't she?" said Ina. "Amy's the prettiest girl in this old town," said Eddy, and all the Carrolls laughed like children. "Well, I'm glad you all admire me so much," Mrs. Carroll said, in her sweet drawl, "because--" "Because what, honey?" said Carroll. The boy and the two girls looked inquiringly, but Anna Carroll smiled with slightly vexed knowledge. "Well," said Mrs. Carroll, "you must all look at me in my purple gown and get all the comfort you can out of it; you must nourish yourselves through your aesthetic sense, because this soup is all you will get for dinner, except dessert. There is a little dessert." Poor little Eddy Carroll made a slight, half-smothered exclamation. "Oh, shucks!" he said, then he laughed with the others. None of them looked surprised. They all laughed, though somewhat ruefully. "Anna came this forenoon and asked me what she should do," Mrs. Carroll said, in her soft tone of childlike glee, as if she really enjoyed the situation. "Poor Anna looked annoyed. This country air makes Anna hungry. Now, as for me, I am not hungry at all. If I can have fruit and salad I am quite satisfied. It is so fortunate that we have those raspberries and those early pears. Those little pears are quite delicious, and they are nourishing, I am sure. And then it is providential that we have lettuce in our own garden. And the grocer did not object in the least to letting last week's bill run and letting us have olive-oil and vinegar. I have plenty, so I can regard it all quite cheerfully; but Anna, poor darling, is hungry like a pussy-cat for real, solid meat. Well, Anna comes, face so long"--Mrs. Carroll drew down her lovely face, to a chorus of admiring laughter, Anna Carroll herself joining. Mrs. Carroll continued. "Yes, so long," and made her face long again by way of encore. "And I said, 'Why, Anna, honey, what is the matter?' 'Amy,' said she, 'this is serious, very serious. Why, neither the butcher nor the egg-man will trust us. We have only money enough to part pay one of them, just to keep them going,' says she, 'and what shall I do, Amy?' 'It's either to go without meat or eggs,' says I. 'Yes, Amy, honey,' says she. 'And you can't pay them each a little?' says I, 'for I am real wise about that way of doing, you know.'" Mrs. Carroll said the last with the air of a precocious child; she looked askance for admiration as she said it, and laughed herself with the others. "'No,' says poor Anna--'no, Amy, there is not enough money for two littles, only enough for one little. What shall we do, Amy?' 'Well,' says Amy, 'we had chops for