and, besides, it would not be fair to Aunt Lydia, after her having
such expense with us all these months. Don't you remember that
delicious apple pie, Maurice, and the red, red apples to eat with
bread in the fields? 'Tis only the last few days Aunt Lydia has got
really unkind, and perhaps we are very expensive little children.
Besides, Maurice, darling, I did not like to tell you at first, but
there is one dreadful, dreadful thing about the Union. However nice a
home it might be for you and me, we could not take Toby with us,
Maurice. Aunt Lydia said Toby would not be taken in."

"Then what would become of our dog?" asked Maurice, opening his
velvety brown eyes very wide.

"Ah! that I don't understand. Aunt Lydia just laughed, and said Toby
should have a yard of rope, and 'twould be cheaper than the Union. I
can't in the least find out what she meant."

But here Maurice got very red, so red, down below his chin, and into
his neck, and even up to the roots of his hair, that Cecile gazed at
him in alarm, and feared he had been taken seriously ill.

"Oh, Cecile!" he gasped. "Oh! oh! oh!" and here he buried his head
on his sister's breast.

"What is it, Maurice? Maurice, speak to me," implored his sister.
"Maurice, are very ill? Do speak to me, darling?"

"No, Cecile, I'm not ill," said the little boy, when he could find
voice after his agitation. "But, oh! Cecile, you must never be angry
with me for hating Aunt Lydia again. Cecile, Aunt Lydia is the