"Do tell me about it," said Dorothy.
"These glass doors by the fireplace did not have curtains in our day," said the little girl, "and there were shells and other things from the ocean in one cupboard, and in the other there were a sword and a helmet and a pair of gauntlets. My brother wrapped a sheet around him and put on the helmet and the gauntlets, and, taking the sword in his hand, he climbed into the cupboard and sat down. We girls closed the doors and hid behind the sofa. Uncle Zack came in to fix the fire, and my brother beckoned to him. Poor Zack dropped the wood he was carrying and fell on his knees, trembling with fright. The door was not fastened and my brother pushed it open and pointed the sword at poor Uncle Zack.
"'Don' hurt a po' ol' nigger,' said Zack, very faintly. 'I 'ain' don' noffin', 'deed I 'ain'.'
"'You told about the jam the children ate,' said my brother, in a deep voice, 'and you know you drank the last drop of rum Mammy Sue had for her rheumatism, and for this you must be punished,' and he brought the sword down on the floor of the cupboard with a bang.
"Poor Uncle Zack fell on his face with fright. This was too much for my sister and me, and we laughed out.
"You never saw any one change so quickly as Uncle Zack. He jumped up and we ran, but my brother had to get out of his disguise, and Uncle Zack caught him. He agreed not to tell our father if we did not tell about his fright, and so we escaped being punished."
"Tell me more about your life in this old house," said Dorothy, when the little girl finished her story. But just then the picture of Dorothy's great-grandmother moved and out she stepped from her frame. She walked with a very stately air toward the children and put her hand on the shoulder of the little girl who had been telling the story, and said: "You better go back to your frame now."
"Oh dear!" said the little girl. "I did so dislike being grown up, and I had forgotten all about it, when my grown-up self reminds me. That is the trouble when you are in the room with your grown-up picture," she told Dorothy. "You see, I had to be so sedate after I married that I never even dared to think of my girlhood, but you come in here again some day and I will tell you more about the good times we had."
The boy mounted the chair first and helped his sisters back into the frame. Dorothy looked for her great-grandmother, but she, too, was back in her frame, looking as sedate as ever. The next day Dorothy asked her grandmother who the children were in the big picture.
"This one," she said, pointing to the little golden-haired girl, "was your great-grandmother; you were named for her; and the other little girl and boy were your grandfather's aunt and uncle. They were your great-great-aunt and uncle."