That Mrs. Drabble was a byeword in Casterwell for untidiness was not altogether her fault. In truth, she possessed neither the strength nor the capability necessary to reduce her domestic chaos to something like order. A more helpless, hopeless creature never lived. She had been a pretty girl enough when she had married Drabble, and that would-be reformer was largely, if not entirely, the cause of her degeneration. "And how is my young friend Margery?" asked Aldean, who had known Mrs. Drabble and her household ever since he was a small boy in petticoats. "Oh, Margery is well enough," sighed Mrs. Drabble (she naturally took a despondent view of life). "Her brain is too big for her body, and lately she has taken to writing poetry. As if that would help one? Then there is Cade, and Brutus, and Danton--all of them growing boys, who eat enormously and spoil their clothes dreadfully. I'm sure I often wish their father was more of a parent and less of a Radical," finished the poor lady. "I can't do everything; it's not to be expected--nobody can deny that." A crowd of children--all named after notorious Republicans--at that moment surged past the sitting-room door, which would not shut. Giggling and whispering, they appeared and disappeared like rabbits in and out of their burrows. Shortly Margaret, the eldest, tripped into the room, and shook hands with precocious composure. She was a pretty little girl of some twelve years, with a nobly-formed head, a profusion of curly reddish hair, a complexion of cream, and dreamy grey eyes. Altogether a noticeable child. She already displayed considerable brain power, and, indeed, she was the only one of his children in whom Dr. Drabble took the smallest interest. The display of his affection took the form of inculcating her with pernicious Anarchistic doctrines, the meaning of which the poor child, intelligent as she was, was quite at a loss to understand. As Hamilcar made his son take an oath of eternal hatred for Rome, so did Dr. Drabble instil into his small daughter a detestation of the world and the world's social system. Poor little Margery innocently piped diatribes which would have done credit to the hags of the Revolution. "Well, Margery Daw," said Mallow kindly, "have you forgotten who I am?" "Oh no," answered the child in her pleasantly low voice, "you are the gentleman Olive is so fond of." Lord Aldean laughed, Mallow coloured, and Mrs. Drabble, much shocked, apologized for her daughter's candour. "But indeed she is such a sharp little thing that there is no keeping anything from her," wailed Mrs. Drabble; "and the doctor, I am sorry to say, tells her many things that a child should not hear." "I am a Red Anarchist, like father," announced Margery, proudly. "We intend to make everybody equal." "Do you, indeed?" laughed Aldean, drawing the child to his knee. "And what is to be done with me?" "You are to be called Mr. Aldean, and made to work."