"Certainly, dear! Hilda shall have the pearl one,—there! This is the prettiest, Hilda—"
"But why am I to have all the prettiest?" inquired Hildegarde. "You are very reckless, Bell."
"No, my love, I am not," said Bell. "Pen-handles are, generally speaking, a drug in this family. For several Christmases Willy—dear child!—could not think of anything else to give us, so we had pen-handles all round—how many years, Gertrude?"
"Three, I think," said Gertrude. "Then some one laughed, and hurt his dear little feelings, and he never gave us any more. I miss the Christmas pen-handle myself, for I always get mine nibbled pretty short in the course of the fall term. It is the only way I can possibly write a composition."
"And is your next composition to be on the 'Scottish Chiefs?'" asked Hildegarde. "Or do you hope to cure yourself by the taste of varnish and red paint?"
"Puppies!" cried Bell, emerging once more from the depths of the trunk. "Five china puppies in a row. And thereby hangs a tale."
"I don't see a sign of a tail," said Gertrude, inspecting the five little terriers, all sitting up very straight, with their paws exactly on a line.
"Spell it the other way, miss; and don't forget your Shakespeare," said her sister.
"This reminds me of the very most foolish charade I ever heard. We were playing one evening in Martha Sinclair's room; and Janet Armour took this row of puppies from the mantelpiece and set it on the floor, and told us to look at it. Then she kicked it over with her foot, and told us it was a word of three syllables, all three and the whole word given at once. See if you can guess, Hildegarde? You give it up? Well, it is too silly to guess. 'Kick-a-row,' do you see? Cicero, Gertrude, my lamb. I explain on account of your tender years."
"She must be a silly girl," said Gertrude. "We wouldn't put up with such a poor charade as that here, would we, Hilda?"