you get it?" inquired Edna in a tone of surprise. "It wasn't on the nail when I looked there for it a little while ago."

"You dropped it on the door-mat last evening," Reliance told her. "I found it there and slipped it into the pocket of my apron, and this morning when I went to get my apron, there it was so I just hung it up where it belonged."

"Well, I'm sure," said Amanda, "that's easily explained."

"Who'd ha' thought it," said Ira. "Well, that let's us out of another hunt. I won't have to wrastle with the door after all, will I?"

So, after all, Edna's early rising was unnecessary, but she did not feel sorry that she had had such an experience, and was content to sit and watch Amanda mould her biscuits and to help Reliance finish setting the table. Amanda insisted upon giving her a drink of buttermilk from the spring-house to which she despatched Reliance, advising Edna not to go this time. "You've had one tramp," she said, "and moreover you'll be starved by breakfast time if you don't have something to stay you."

The sausages were sizzling in the pan, and the griddle was ready for the buckwheat cakes when Mrs. Conway appeared. "Well, you did steal a march on us," she said to her little daughter. "How long have you been up? I didn't hear a sound. You must have been a veritable mouse to be so quiet."

"I've been up since before daylight," Edna told her. "I took my things into the bathroom so as not to disturb you; it was lovely and warm in there." Then again she repeated her story of the lost key.

"Reliance had the joke on her," said Amanda, "for she had the key all the time."

"Why didn't you tell me you had found it?" asked Edna a little reproachfully as she turned to Reliance, who had by this time returned from the spring-house.

"I thought you would forget all about it, and I didn't think it was worth while to mention. Besides," she added, "I ought to have carried the key myself anyway."

"You're right there," remarked Amanda. "It is your especial charge and you oughtn't to have let anyone else fetch it in. Moreover, you'd ought to have hung it up the minute you found it, and there it would have been when it was looked for."

"Oh, don't scold her," begged Edna. "It was all my fault, really."

Amanda smiled. "I don't see it just that way. Folks had ought to learn when they're young that in this house there's a place for everything, and everything should be in its place. I rather guess, though, that that special key won't get lost again right away."

Edna felt that she had brought this lecture upon Reliance and felt rather badly to have done so, but the prospect of buckwheat cakes soon drove her self-reproach away and she went in to say good morning to her grandparents, well satisfied with the world in general and content to look ahead rather than at what was now past and gone, and which could not be altered.

Before the day had far advanced, came the first of the arrivals, Aunt Alice Barker and her two boys, Ben and Willis. Ben and Edna were great chums, though he was the older of the two boys. Ben was alert, full of fun and ready to joke on every occasion, while Willis was rather shy and had not much to say to his little cousin, whom, by the way, he did not know so very well.

Edna would fain have spent the morning in the kitchen from which issued delectable odors, but Amanda had declared she wanted all the room there was, that she had scatted out the cats and dogs and she would have to scat out children, too, if they came bothering around. Therefore, to avoid this catastrophe, Edna took herself to a different part of the house, and was standing at one of the front windows when the carriage drove up.

"Oh, grandpa," she sang out, "here come Aunt Alice and her boys! Hurry! Hurry! or they will get here before we can be there to meet them."

Her grandfather threw down his newspaper and laid aside his spectacles. "Well, well," he said, "it takes the young eyes to find out who is coming. I didn't suppose Allie would be here till afternoon. What team have they. Why didn't they let us know so we could send for them!"

He followed Edna, who was already at the front door tugging at the bolt, then in another moment the two were out on the porch while yet the carriage was some yards away. Ben caught sight of them. "Hello!" he cried out. "Here we are, bag and baggage. Didn't expect us so soon, did you grandpa?"

"No, son, we didn't. How did you come to steal a march on us in this way?"

"The express was behind time so we caught it at the junction, instead of having to wait for the train we expected to take. It didn't seem worth while to telephone; in fact we didn't have time, so we just got this team from Mayville and here we are. How are you Pinky Blooms?" He darted at Edna, tousled her hair, picked her up and slung her over his shoulder as if she were a bag of meal, and dropped her on the top step of the porch, she laughing and protesting the while.

"Oh, Ben," she panted, "you are perfectly dreadful."

"Why, is that you, Edna?" said Ben in pretended surprise. "I thought you were my valise; it is too bad I made the mistake and dumped you down so unceremoniously."

Edna knew perfectly well how to take this so she picked herself up laughing, and started after Ben who leaped over the railing of the porch thus making his escape. By this time Mrs. Willis and Mrs. Conway had come out and the whole company went indoors, Ben the last to come, peeping in through a crack of the door, and then slinking in with a pretense of being afraid of Edna. An hour later, these two were tramping over the place, hand in hand, making all sorts of discoveries, leaving Willis deep in a book and the older people chatting cozily before the open fire.

Aunt Emmeline, Uncle Wilbur and Becky were the next to come, Becky being in a pout because her sweetheart had failed to make the train, and Aunt Emmeline fussing and arguing with her.

"You know, Becky, that he is coming, and I don't see what difference a couple of hours will make," she said as she gave her hand, to her sister, Mrs. Willis. "I am just telling Becky, Cecelia, that she is very foolish to make such a fuss because Howard is detained; he missed the train, you see, and can't arrive till the next comes in." She passed on into the house still talking, while Edna made her escape upstairs. She had not noticed the little girl, and Edna felt rather slighted.

However, this was all forgotten a little later when her own brothers and sister as well as her father were to be welcomed. You would suppose Edna had been parted from them for at least a year, so joyous were her greetings, and so much did she have to tell. She had scarcely unburdened herself of all her happenings, before in swarmed Uncle Bert and his family. There was so many of these that for a little while they seemed to fill the entire house, for, first appeared Aunt Lucia and after her the nurse carrying the baby, then Uncle Bert with little Herbert in his arms, and then Lulie and Allen and Ted. Cousin Becky's sweetheart, Howard Colby, came on the last train and ended the list of guests. What a houseful it was, to be sure, and what long, long tables in the dining-room. Reliance was not able to wait on everybody, and so Amanda's niece Fanny, took a hand, thus everyone was served.

Edna was rather shy of those cousins whom she had not seen for two or three years, and after supper preferred to stay close to her sister Celia and Ben, though her brothers were soon hob-nobbing with