You might have heard--if you'd stood out on the piazza looking in, and happened to have the key to the riddle--a hint in verse of every Madigan escapade, of every Madigan failing, of all the Madigan jokes, on Old Mother Gibson nights. You would have seen even Kate--young-lady Kate, who had once substituted in a school--join in this mad revel, with an appetite for fun that showed how much of a child she still was. An impressionable young Irishman, who had come out upon the piazza to smoke a cigar and think himself back into his usual poise after a day full of new experiences, had his attention attracted by the strumming on the piano; and glancing in through the open window, he saw a slender, graceful girl, her dark head rising lightly from the sailor collar of a pink gingham blouse. She was balancing lightly as she walked, keeping time to the rhythm, and followed by a procession of children in single file. (A belief in the efficacy of motion to stimulate one's power of improvisation made Old Mother Gibson the liveliest of games.) And arriving at the center of the stage, she delivered herself in a singsong of the following: "Old Mother Gibson, be on your best behavior, Or you'll surely fail to satisfy the savior." It didn't seem a very funny or apposite ditty to Miles Morgan, but, to judge by its effect upon those within, it was exquisitely witty. The whole company doubled up with laughter. It giggled till its collective sides must have ached; then it slowly and gaspingly subsided. When it had quieted down, the piano began again, and a red-headed Madigan, intoxicated by the music, the license of the time, and the excitement accompanying creative work, danced a fantastic _pas seul_, as she flew about in the Mother Gibson merry-go-round. "Old Mother Gibson's savior was a dandy-- He thought he'd buy the Madigans with a stick of candy!" sang Split, and the parlor yelled itself hoarse with uproarious delight. The fat little girl at the piano began to play, and stopped several times, that she might wipe the tears of laughter from her eyes and get her breath. At last, with a squaring of her shoulders and a stiffening of backbone that seemed queerly familiar to Morgan, watching outside, she half drawled, half sang, with an unmistakable accent: "Old Mother Gibson was angry at the Fates; My word! They sent the savior 'way out to the States!" A sudden enlightenment came to Miles Morgan. For a moment the red flamed up in his cheek, and if Split could have seen his face she might have fancied that some imp had caught her likeness, when her temper had got beyond her control, and set it on this man's body. "The impudent little beggars!" Morgan cried furiously. "My word!" He stopped, remembering the use to which his favorite exclamation had been put. "But what a saucy lot!" He was laughing before he had finished wording his thought. He was interested now, and listened with a grin to Fom's declaration that