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 if you struck the new gong, just the way I showed you. I guess you just didn't remember."

Ida's face turned scarlet. She gave a quick nervous tap to the Chinese gong.

"Oh, I didn't mean now; I meant next time. No, that's all right. That's all right. Dinner, Hartley. Dinner, mother."

"That girl don't hit the gong right," said old Mrs. Hartley.

"I know; she doesn't bring out the beauty at all. I showed her and showed her, but she got sort of embarrassed, for some reason. Dinner, mother."

"Seems a pity not to hit it right, when Cousin Fannie brought it all the way from China."

"Slo-ow and sing-ing!" Hartley demonstrated.

"You show her, son; she'd take it from you. Dinner, mother."

"I'm not deaf, Sadie! Mercy! Dinner, mother, dinner, mother!"

The steam from the platter of boiled fowl and rice dimmed Hartley's spectacles, so that he had to wipe them with one of Aunt Martha's Christmas-present handkerchiefs after he finished carving. "Now, grandma, here's a choice portion. This looks good to a hungry woodsman, girls!" For he no longer avoided starches, but now was interested in cutting out red meat. "I had my Sunday-school boys out in the woods behind Joe Green's house this afternoon. We identified fourteen birds, and one I couldn't quite place, with