"Yes, indeed, sir! It's the most beautiful flag that waves, isn't it?"

"None to compare to it in my esteem," his father answered with a pleased laugh.

CHAPTER IX.

Before morning the weather had moderated very much, a thaw had set in, and the snow was going rapidly.

"Well, what sports shall we contrive for to-day?" asked Herbert, at the breakfast table. "Certainly both skating and snow fights are entirely out of the question."

"Entirely!" echoed Harold; "all other outdoor sports also; for a drizzling rain is beginning to fall, and the melting snow has covered roads and paths with several inches of water."

"We have some games for the house which you have not tried yet," said their mother; "'Table croquet,' 'Parlor Quoits,' 'Parlor Ring Toss,'

Jack-straws and others."

"And I have a new game that papa gave me this Christmas--'The Flags of all Nations,'" remarked Lulu. "I brought it with me."

"We will be glad to see it," said Harold.

"It is probably improving as well as entertaining," remarked Zoe. "I should judge so from the name."

"I think you will find it both," said the captain.

"So you would 'Corn and Beans,' too, Aunt Zoe," said Max. "Papa gave it to me, and we tried it Christmas eve at home, and found it very funny."

The morning and most of the afternoon were occupied with these games, which seemed to afford much enjoyment to the children and young people.

It was the winding up of their Christmas festivities at Ion, and all were in the mood for making it as gay and mirthful as possible.

Some--the Raymonds among others--would leave shortly after tea, the rest by or before bedtime.

They finished the sports of the afternoon with two charades. The older people were the spectators, the younger ones the actors.

Mendicant was the word chosen for the first.

A number of the boys and girls came trooping into the parlor, each carrying an old garment, thimble on finger, and needle and thread in hand. Seating themselves they fell to work.

Zoe was patching an old coat, Lulu an ap.r.o.n, Gracie a doll's dress; Eva and Rosie each had a worn stocking drawn over her hand, and was busily engaged in darning it; the other girls were mending gloves, the boys old shoes; and as they worked they talked among themselves.

"Zoe," said Maud, "I should mend that coat differently."

"How would you mend it?" asked Zoe.

"With a patch much larger than that you are sewing on it."

"I shouldn't mend it that way," remarked Sydney. "I'd darn it."

"Thank you both for your very kind and disinterested advice," sniffed Zoe. "But I learned how to mend before I ever saw you. And I should mend those gloves in a better way than you are taking."

"If you know so well how to mend, Madam Zoe, will you please give me some instruction about mending this shoe?" said Herbert. "Cobbling is not in my line."

"Neither is it in mine, Sir Herbert," she returned, drawing herself up with a lofty air.

"Such silly pride! They should mend their ways if not their garments,"

remarked Maud, in a scornful aside.

"One should think it beneath her to mend even a worn stocking," said Rosie.

"No," responded Eva, "and she should mend it well."

"Your first syllable is not hard to guess, children," said Mrs.

Dinsmore; "evidently it is mend."

With that the actors withdrew, and presently Chester Dinsmore returned alone, marching in and around the room with head erect and pompous air.

His clothes were of fine material and fashionable cut, he wore handsome jewelry, sported a gold headed cane, and strutted to and fro, gazing about him with an air of lofty disdain as of one who felt himself superior to all upon whom his glances fell.

Harold presently followed him into the room. He was dressed as a country swain, came in with modest, diffident air, and for a while stood watching Chester curiously from the opposite side of the apartment, then crossing over, he stood before him, hat in hand, and bowing low.

"Sir," he said respectfully, "will you be so kind as to tell me if you are anybody in particular? I'm from the country, and shouldn't like to meet any great man and not know it."

"I, sir?" cried Chester, drawing himself up to his full height, and swelling with importance. "I? I am the greatest man in America; the greatest man of the age; I am Mr. Smith, sir, the inventor of the most delicious ices and confectionery ever eaten."

"Thank you, sir," returned Harold, with another low bow. "I shall always be proud and happy to have met so great a man."

Laughter, clapping of hands, and cries of "I! I!" among the spectators, as the two withdrew by way of the hall.

Soon the young actors flocked in again. A book lay on a table, quite near the edge. With a sudden jerk Herbert threw it on the floor.

Rosie picked it up and replaced it, saying: "Can't you let things alone?"

"Rosie, why can't you let the poor boy alone?" whined her cousin, Lora Howard. "No one has ever known me to be guilty of such an exhibition of temper; it's positively wicked."

"Oh, you're very good, Lora," sniffed Zoe. "I can't pretend to be half so perfect."

"Certainly I can't," said Eva.

"I can't."

"I can't," echoed Lulu, Max, and several others.

"Come now, children, can't you be quiet a bit?" asked Harold. "I can't auction off these goods unless you are attending and ready with your bids."

Setting down a basket he had brought in with him, he took an article from it and held it high in air.

"We have here an elegant lace veil worth perhaps a hundred dollars; it is to be sold now to the highest bidder. Somebody give us a bid for this beautiful piece of costly lace, likely to go for a t.i.the of its real value."

"One dollar," said Rosie.