designed to transform the peace and quiet of the scene. Her small, fat
face turned purple, her big, brown eyes shut tight, her round mouth
opened, and from the tiny aperture came a succession of shrieks which
would have lulled a siren into abashed silence. The effect of this
demonstration, rarely long delayed, was instantaneous now. A white-
capped nurse came to an up-stairs window and shook her head warningly;
the two small sisters rose and scurried across the lawn; a neighbor
came to the hedge and clapped her hands softly, clucking mystic
monosyllables supposed to be of a soothing nature; neighboring
children within hearing assumed half-holiday expressions and started
with a rush to the side of the blatant afflicted one. Surveying all
this through half-shut eyes and hearing the steady tramp of the
oncoming relief corps, an expression of triumphant content rested for
an instant of Genevieve Maud's face. Then she tied it up again into
knots of even more disfiguring pattern, took another long breath, and
apparently made an earnest effort to attract the attention of citizens
of the next township. "I'm tired!" was the message Genevieve Maud sent
to a sympathetic world on the wings of this megaphonic roar.

The trained nurse, who had rushed down-stairs and into the garden, now
reached her side and drastically checked Genevieve Maud's histrionism
by spreading a spacious palm over the wide little mouth. With her
other hand she hoisted Genevieve Maud from the flower-bed and escorted
her to neutral ground on the lawn.

"'Tired!'" repeated the irate nurse, as the uproar subsided to
gurgles. "Heavens! I should think you would be, after that!" Helen
Adeline and Grace Margaret arrived simultaneously, and the older child
took the situation and the infant in hand with her best imitation of
her mother's manner.