of her grandfather's cousin, Thomas Huntingdon. Barby could not tell her
and Mrs. Triplett, too busy to be bothered, set her down to turn the
leaves of the family album. But the photograph of Cousin Mehitable had
been taken when she was a boarding-school miss in a disfiguring hat and
basque, and bore little resemblance to the imposing personage who headed
the procession of visitors, arriving promptly at eleven o'clock.

When Cousin Mehitable came into the room in her widow's bonnet with the
long black veil hanging down behind, she seemed to fill the place as the
massive black walnut wardrobe upstairs filled the alcove. She lifted her
eyeglasses from the hook on her dress to her hooked nose to look at
Georgina before she kissed her. Under that gaze the child felt as awed as
if the big wardrobe had bent over and put a wooden kiss on her forehead
and said in a deep, whispery sort of voice, "So this is the Judge's
grand-daughter. How do you do, my dear?"

All the guests were middle aged and most of them portly. There were so
many that they filled all the chairs and the long claw-foot sofa besides.
Georgina sat on a foot-stool, her hands folded in her lap until the
others took out their knitting and embroidery. Then she ran to get the
napkin she was hemming. The husbands who had been invited did not arrive
until time to sit down to dinner and they left immediately after the
feast.

Georgina wished that everybody would keep still and let one guest at a
time do the talking. After the first few minutes of general conversation
the circle broke into little groups, and it wasn't possible to follow the
thread of the story in more than one. Each group kept bringing to light
some bit of family history that she wanted to hear or some old family
joke which they laughed over as if it were the funniest thing that ever