Sometimes, however, the mug would disappear rather suddenly in the morning, and an odor as of sulphureted hydrogen would linger about, till the kitchen windows were raised and the fresh west wind admitted. That meant that a failure had occurred; the wrong microbe had obtained possession of the mug. In such cases Gram acted promptly and said little. She was always reticent concerning mug-bread. It had unspeakable contingencies. Ellen and Theodora shared the old lady's reticence. Ellen, in fact, could never be persuaded to eat it, good as it was. "I know too much about it," she would say. "It isn't nice." Beyond doubt, when "mug-bread" goes astray at about the second rising, the consequences are depressing. If its little eyes fail to open and the batter takes on a greasy aspect, with a tendency to crawl and glide about, no time should be lost. Open all the windows at once and send the batter promptly to the swill-barrel. It is useless to dally with it. You will be sorry if you do. When it goes wrong, it is utterly depraved. I remember an experience which Theodora and Ellen had with mug-bread on one occasion, when Gram was away from home. Aunt Nabbie and Uncle Pascal Mowbray came on from Philadelphia while she and the Old Squire were gone. Aunt Nabbie was grandmother's sister, and she and Uncle Mowbray had been talking all that season of coming to visit us. But September had been spoken of as the time they were coming. They changed their minds, however. Uncle Pascal desired to look after some business venture of his in Portland, and decided to come in August. It was a somewhat sudden change of plan, but they sent us a letter the day before they started, thinking that we would get it and meet them at the railway station. Now, all dear city cousins, aunts, uncles and the rest of you who visit your country relatives, summer or winter, hear me! Do not hold back your letter telling them you are coming till the day before you start. Nine times out of ten they will not get it. You will get there before the letter does; and the chances are that you will have to provide your own transportation for the six or ten miles from the railway station to the farm, and you will think that distance longer than all the rest of the journey. Most likely, too, you will find the farmer gone to a Grange meeting; and by the time you have sat round the farmhouse door on your trunk till he gets back at sunset, you will be homesick, and maybe hungry. Also--for there are two sides to the matter--your country brother and his wife will be troubled about it. So send your letter at least a week ahead. The first we knew of the coming of Uncle Pascal and Aunt Nabbie, they drove into the yard with a livery team from the village, and an express wagon coming on behind with their trunks.