"The Cantata of the Flowers" was never brought to a glorious completion by the Madigans, even though they skipped uninteresting and difficult parts, and, like the early Elizabethans, permitted no intermission between acts. It was very often laughed to death. At times it became a saturnalia of extravagant action, and it frequently ended in a free fight, when the Rose and the Lily hinted too openly at the Recluse's incurable tendency to sing off key. But that night it might have dragged its saccharine length of melody to the coronation of the Rose and a quick curtain if Miss Madigan had not walked right into the thick of it. "Golly!" gasped Sissy, while Irene dodged behind Kate, who quickly turned down the lamp, and a hush fell upon the rest. But Miss Madigan had been writing, or rather rewriting, letters. She had completely forgotten the heinous offense of the afternoon. "Will you mail a letter for me, Sissy, the first thing in the morning?" she asked, still preoccupied. "Why are you in the dark?" "We're just going to bed," remarked Sissy, with soothing demureness, taking the envelope from her aunt's hand and falling in with her mood, as one does with the mentally afflicted. When Miss Madigan, fatigued with the labor of composition, had gone back to her room, Kate turned up the light again. "Same thing, I s'pose?" she asked. "Circumstances-letter--huh?" "I s'pose so. 'T ain't sealed," said Sissy, with resignation. "But she always forgets to seal 'em." Then, suddenly inspired, she caught up Professor Trask's pencil lying on the piano, and on the vacant half-page at the end of Miss Madigan's letter she wrote in her best school-girl hand: You--whoever you are--needn't bother to answer this. None of us Madigans wants your help or annybody else's. It 't only that Aunt Anne's got the scribbles, and we'll thank you to mind your own buisness. _Sissy Madigan._ She read her composition to the startled but, on the whole, approving Madigans, sealed the letter, and was ready for bed. They were all scampering through the long hall playing leap-frog--a specialty of Split's which her present costume facilitated--when Francis Madigan, candle in hand, came out of his room on his usual tour of nightly inspection. His short-sighted eyes fell upon Irene, a pretty, lithe, wavy-haired boy, before she and the twins bolted. "What boy have you got there?" he demanded. "Send him home." Kate took Frances up in her arms and covered the retreat; she knew how much the better part of valor was discretion. Sissy remained standing, looking up at him. When she was alone with her father she was conscious of her poor little barren favoriteship, though she dared not impose upon it. In the candle-light his harsh, rugged features stood out marked with lines of suffering. "It's all right, father," she said, with a quick choice of the lesser irritation for him. "He'll go--right away. Good night."