length from him to get a better look at her. "What are you dressed up in
this style for?" he continued, as he surveyed her from head to foot; and
then bursting into a loud laugh at her comical appearance, he released her,
and she made the quickest possible retreat into the house by the way she
came out.

Bushing breathless upstairs, she exclaimed, "Oh, mother, mother, I've done
it now! They've come, and I've beat him over the head with a broom!"

"Beat whom over the head with a broom?" asked Mrs. Ellis.

"Oh, mother, I'm so ashamed, I don't know what to do with myself. I struck
Mr. Winston with a broom. Mr. Winston, the gentleman father has brought
home."

"I really believe the child is crazy," said Mrs. Ellis, surveying the
chagrined girl. "Beat Mr. Winston over the head with a broom! how came you
to do it?"

"Oh, mother, I made a great mistake; I thought he was a beggar."

"He must be a very different looking person from what we have been led to
expect," here interrupted Esther. "I understood father to say that he was
very gentlemanlike in appearance."

"So he is," replied Caddy.

"But you just said you took him for a beggar?" replied her mother.

"Oh, don't bother me, don't bother me! my head is all turned upside down.