"James," began Mrs. Wentworth, with some hesitation, one June day, "I've been thinking--with all our rambling rooms and great big yards, and we with never a chick nor a child to enjoy them--I 've been thinking--that is, I went by the orphan asylum in town yesterday and saw the poor little mites playing in that miserable brick oven they call a yard, and--well, don't you think we ought to have one--or maybe two--of them down here for a week or two, just to show them what summer really is?" The man's face beamed. "My dear, it's the very thing! We'll take two--they'll be company for each other; only"--he looked doubtfully at the stout little woman opposite--"the worst of it will come on you, Mary. Of course Hannah can manage the work part, I suppose, but the noise--well, we 'll ask for quiet ones," he finished, with an air that indicated an entirely satisfactory solution of the problem. Life at "Meadowbrook" was a thing of peaceful mornings and long, drowsy afternoons; a thing of spotless order and methodical routine. In a long, childless marriage Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth's days had come to be ordered with a precision that admitted of no frivolous deviations: and noise and confusion in the household machinery were the unforgivable offenses. It was into this placid existence that Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth proposed to introduce two children from the orphan asylum. Before the week was out a note was sent to the matron of the institution, and the prospective host and hostess were making their plans with unwonted excitement. "We 'll rise at six and breakfast at seven," began Mrs. Wentworth. "And they must be in bed by eight o'clock," supplemented her husband. "I did n't say whether to send boys or girls, and I forgot to say anything about their being quiet; but if they 're boys, you can teach them gardening, James, and if they 're girls, they can sew with me a good deal." "Hm-m--yes; I really don't know what we shall do to entertain them. Perhaps they might like to read," suggested Mr. Wentworth, looking with some doubt at his big bookcases filled with heavy, calf-bound volumes. "Of course; and they can walk in the garden and sit on the piazza," murmured Mrs. Wentworth happily. In the orphan asylum that same evening there was even greater excitement. Mrs. Wentworth's handwriting was not of the clearest, and her request for "two" children had been read as "ten"; and since the asylum--which was only a small branch of a much larger institution--had recently been depleted until it contained but five children, the matron was sorely perplexed to know just how to fill so generous an order. It ended in her writing an apologetic note to Mrs. Wentworth and dispatching it the next morning by the hand of the eldest girl, Tilly, who was placed at the head of four other jubilant children, brushed, scrubbed, and admonished into a state of immaculate primness.