wonder whether we ought to make them pay tariff on things. That was the first thing I thought of, when I read that Kitty meant to visit us. It does seem a little like inhospitality, to make them pay tariff.”

“Not a bit!” said Tom. “They will like it. It will be a lot of fun for them, and you know it will, Laura. Would we like to be left out of anything of that kind if we were visiting any one? Of course not. I don’t know Kitty as well as you do, but speaking for Billy I can say that he would be mighty hurt if we did not treat him just as we treat the rest of the family. He will think it is a jolly game.”

“I am not afraid of how Kitty will take it, when I tell her it is all for the benefit of Bobberts. She will be wild about the tariff. The only thing I am afraid of is that she will go and buy things she doesn’t need or want, just in order that she can put money in Bobberts’ bank,” said Mrs. Fenelby. “I told Bridget about the tariff to-day, and she was so interested! Every one I tell about it thinks it is a splendid idea, and wonders how you could think of it.”

“I do think of some things that other people do not think of,” said Mr. Fenelby, rather proudly; “but that is because I accustom myself to use my brains.”

“But it is surprising how a little thing like this tariff counts up!” said Mrs. Fenelby. “My bills this week were fourteen dollars, and I had to put a dollar and forty cents into Bobberts’ bank, and then I had to pay Bridget’s month’s wages to-day, but I didn’t have to pay any tariff on that, and I had to pay the gas bill, too; but I didn’t have to pay any tariff on that, thank goodness—”

“Of course you have to pay tariff on the gas bill!” exclaimed Mr. Fenelby. “The gas came into the house, didn’t it?”

“But you said I didn’t have to pay tariff on the rent bill,” argued Laura; “and the rent bill is just as much a bill as the gas bill is. You know very well, Tom, that we always figure on those three things as if they were just alike—the rent, and the gas, and Bridget,—and I don’t see why, if there is a tariff on gas why there should not be one on rent.”

“Rent isn’t a thing that comes into the house,” explained Mr. Fenelby. “You can’t see rent.”

“You can’t see gas,” said Mrs. Fenelby.

“You can see it if it is lighted,” said Mr. Fenelby, “and you can smell it any time you want to. Gas is a real object, or thing, and we buy it, and it pays a duty.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Fenelby. “Then I ought to pay duty on Bridget, too. She is a real thing, and we pay money for her, just as much as we do for gas, and she is a thing that comes into the house. If I don’t pay on Bridget, I don’t see why I should pay on the gas. The next thing you will be saying that Bridget is a luxury, and that I ought to pay thirty per cent. on her! Probably I ought to pay a duty on Bobberts! I don’t think it is fair that I should pay on everything. I will not pay ten per cent. on the gas bill. Everything seems to come the same day.”

“Laura!” exclaimed Mr. Fenelby, with sudden joy, “you don’t have to pay on the gas bill this month! I wonder I hadn’t thought of it. That gas bill is for gas used before the tariff was adopted! And now that you know about it, you will expect to pay next month.”

“I shall warn Bridget again about using so much in the range,” said Laura. “We shall have to economize very carefully, Tom. I can see that. The tariff is going to make our living very expensive.”

They had reached the house, and had lingered a minute on the porch, and now they went inside, for they heard the dinner-bell tinkle.

“You had better drop eight cents in the bank before you forget it,” said Mrs. Fenelby.

“Eight cents?” inquired Tom, quite at a loss to remember what he was to pay eight cents for.

“Eight cents,” repeated his wife. “For the candy. It is eighty cents a pound, isn’t it? But it is a luxury, isn’t it? That would be twenty-four cents!”

“Yes, twenty-four cents,” said Tom, smiling. “Twenty-four cents; but I don’t pay it. You pay it.”

“I pay it!” cried Mrs. Fenelby. “The idea! I didn’t buy the candy. I didn’t even ask you to buy it, Tom, although I am very glad to have it, and you are a dear to bring it to me. But you are the one to pay for it. You bought it.”

“My dear,” said Mr. Fenelby, “whoever brings a thing into the house pays the duty on it. I gave you the box of candy when we were a full block from the house, and you accepted it, and it was your property after that, and you brought it into the house, and you must pay the duty on it.”

For a moment Mrs. Fenelby was inclined to be hurt, and then she laughed.

“What is it?” her husband asked, as he seated himself at his end of the table, and unfolded his napkin.

“I’ll pay the twenty-four cents; but please don’t bring me any more candy,” she said. “I can’t afford presents. But that wasn’t what I was laughing about. I just happened to think of Will and Kitty. Will they have to pay duty on their trunks and all the things they have in them? Kitty has the most luxurious dresses, and luxuries pay thirty per cent. If she will have to pay on them perhaps I had better telegraph her to come with only a dress suit-case.”

They did not telegraph Kitty. About a week later Kitty arrived, and the next day Billy came, and to each the Fenelbys explained the Fenelby Tariff, on the way up from the station. Both thought it was a splendid idea, and agreed to uphold the tariff law and abide by it and be governed by it, and when Mrs. Fenelby handed Kitty’s baggage-checks to Tom and asked him to see that the three trunks were sent over from the city and delivered at the house, Mr. Fenelby had no idea what was in store for him.

“Mrs. Fenelby handed Kitty’s baggage-checks to Tom”

III

KITTY’S TRUNKS

When Mr. Fenelby went to the city in the morning he gave Kitty’s trunk checks to the expressman. When he returned to his home in the evening he found Kitty and Mrs. Fenelby on the porch, and Mrs. Fenelby was explaining to her visitor, for about the tenth time, the workings of the Fenelby Domestic Tariff. She had explained to Kitty how the tariff had come to be adopted, how it was to supply an education fund for Bobberts—who was at that moment asleep in his crib, upstairs—and how every necessity brought into the house had to pay into Bobberts’ bank ten per cent., and every luxury thirty per cent. Kitty was a dear, as was Mrs. Fenelby, but they were as different as cousins could well be, for while Mrs. Fenelby was the man’s ideal of a gentle domestic person, Kitty was the man’s ideal of a forceful, jolly girl, and as full of liveliness as a well behaved young lady could be. She was properly interested in Bobberts and admired him loudly, but in her