"Oh, isn't it jolly to get what one wants!" said Erica, with a
fervor which made the three grown-up people laugh.

"Very jolly," said Raeburn, giving her a little mute caress.

"But now, Erica, please to go back and eat something, or I shall
have my reporter fainting in the middle of a speech."

She obeyed, carrying away the book with her, and enlivening them
with extracts from it; once delightedly discovering a most
appropriate passage.

"Why, of course," she exclaimed, "you and Mr. Osmond, father, are
smoking the Peace Pipe." And with much force and animation she
read them bits from the first canto.

Raeburn left the room before long to get ready for his meeting, but
Erica still lingered over her new treasure, putting it down at
length with great reluctance to prepare her notebook and sharpen
her pencil. "Isn't that a delightful bit where Hiawatha was
angry," she said; "it has been running in my head all day--

"'For his heart was hot within him, Like a living coal his heart
was.'

That's what I shall feel like tonight when Mr. Randolph attacks
father."

She ran upstairs to dress, and, as the door closed upon her, Mrs.