the five children; and they were all enjoying the lunch and themselves
to an extraordinary degree. It was a delight to be with them.

It is necessarily a delight to be with people who are intelligent,
sympathetic and lively, and who have ample money to satisfy their
desires. Somehow you can hear the gold chinking, and the sound is good
to the human ear. Even the youngest girl had money in her nice new
purse, to do with it as she liked. For Mr. Alpha never stinted. He was
generous by instinct, and he wanted everybody to be happy. In fact, he
had turned out quite an unusual father. At the same time he fell short
of being an absolute angel of acquiescence and compliance. For
instance, his youngest child, a girl, broached the subject of music at
that very lunch. She was fourteen, and had shown some of her father's
cleverness at a school musical examination. She was rather uplifted
about her music.

"Can't I take it up seriously, dad?" she said, with the extreme
gravity of her years.

"Of course," said he. "The better you play, the more we shall all be
pleased. Don't you think we deserve some reward for all we've suffered
under your piano-practising?"

She blushed.

"But I mean seriously," she insisted.

"Well, my pet," said he, "you don't reckon you could be a star
pianist, do you? Fifteen hundred dollars a concert, and so on?" And,
as she was sitting next to him, he affectionately pinched her