"I wish you were obliged to go about without them yourself, papa!"
cried Ethel, "and then you would know how tiresome it is not to see
twice the length of your own nose."

"Not such a very short allowance either," said the doctor quaintly,
and therewith the dinner concluded. There was apt to be a race
between the two eldest girls for the honour of bringing down the
baby; but this time their father strode up three steps at once,
turned at the top of the first flight, made his bow to them, and
presently came down with his little daughter in his arms, nodded
triumphantly at the sisters, and set her down on her mother's lap.

"There, Maggie, you are complete, you old hen-and-chicken daisy.
Can't you take her portrait in the character, Margaret?"

"With her pink cap, and Blanche and Aubrey as they are now, on each
side?" said Flora.

"Margaret ought to be in the picture herself," said Ethel. "Fetch the
artist in Norman's Lexicon, Harry."

"Since he has hit off one of us so well," said the doctor. "Well!
I'm off. I must see old Southern. You'll be ready by three? Good-
bye, hen and chicken."

"And I may have the spectacles?" said Ethel, running after him; "you
know I am an injured individual, for mamma won't let me carry baby
about the house because I am so blind."