"Tell me about the dog in the table, Ernie," said Ralph, pulling at Ernestine's dress to attract her attention.
"I don't think I know, you little dear!" she said, laughing gently at his mistake. "We must ask your mamma to tell us both."
"Then 'Innie must hear, too!" said the child, running to the door to call his sister.
It was what Miriam called a "delicious" evening, and after tea she and Fannie and Gretta came strolling over to talk about the events of the week and reassure each other that "all was well." Ralph looked upon each of them as his own particular friend and in a sense his charge, and so he now proceeded to enlighten them on the subject of the dog in the fable as follows:
"There was a dog and a table," he said, "but I don't know what the table was for, because he didn't eat on a table, you know, 'cause he was on'y a dog; but he stealed a bone, and he was wunning away wid it over some watah, and saw his shadow looking like anudder dog wid a bone, an' he was so greedy dat he dropped his bone to get de bone of de odder dog in de ribber, and so he lost his own bone and didn't get any odder, and Josie Thompson didn't get any bone eider."
"Oh, Ralph," said Winnie, "you tell everything you know, besides much that you don't!"
How the girls laughed when Winnie explained! And all the more as laughter came easy to them, with hearts light from the consciousness of a well-spent year which had brought its reward.
CHAPTER XX.
A TRIP TO MAMMOTH CAVE.
One evening, shortly after the examination, Fannie said to her father: "Papa, I want to invite the club for a last meeting before Ernestine leaves us. I wish I could have something in the way of a treat different from anything we have had."