"Six?" echoed the woman in the victoria, with a hungry gleam in her eyes. "You have six children?" "It's six I have," the mother answered; "and it's a fine lot they are altogether, though I say it that shouldn't." The lady put her hand in her purse again. "Buy something with this for the others," she said, placing a bank-note in the Irishwoman's hands. Then she raised her voice and added, "You may drive on, John!" As the victoria rolled away to the westward the fruit-vender courtesied, and the children all looked after the carriage with interest. "That lady must be very rich," said the eldest boy, the one who had the lozenges for sale. "I shouldn't wonder if she had two millions of dollars!" "She must be very happy," the eldest girl added. "I suppose she can have ice-cream every day, and go to the Seaside Home for two weeks whenever she wants." "It's a kind heart she has anyway, for all her money," was the mother's comment, as she unfolded the bank-note and saw the X in the corner of it. Meanwhile the lady in the victoria was eaten with bitter thoughts as the carriage rattled along in the brilliant sunshine beneath the unclouded sky. "Six children!" she was saying to herself. "That Irishwoman has six children! Why is it that some women have so much luck?" (1893.) THE SPEECH OF THE EVENING The more immaterial part of the banquet was about to begin. The guests had made an end of eating, and the waiters were filling the small cups with black coffee, and passing boxes of cigars and cigarettes. At the five long tables which gridironed the great room the hum of conversation rose higher and higher; while at the shorter table, raised on the platform at the western end of the hall, there was almost silence, as the men who were to make speeches saw the oratorical moment approaching. The musicians, hidden behind a screen of greenery, were playing a medley of the latest popular airs; and here and there, at the tables below, a little group of the diners now and again took up a chorus, with intermittent energy, to the amusement of the ladies who were arriving and filling rapidly the broad boxes in the galleries. The organizers of the dinner had felt that it was a great occasion, and they had sought to make it memorable artistically. The severe white of the beautifully proportioned concert-hall was relieved by foliage plants, massed and scattered with a delicate understanding of decorative effect; against the absolutely colorless walls, with their carved caryatides, were palms in pots; gayly colored silken banners floated down from the ceiling; and everywhere, on the ceiling and the walls and the balconies and the platforms, the electric lights glowed and twinkled, illuminating the lofty hall with steady brilliancy.