"Why, Michael Merriman!" cried Josephine, interrupting her playmate's long speech. "There is another girl! You forget—how could you forget—Penelope!"
At which the new Uncle Joe threw back his handsome head and laughed as he had not laughed in many a day; for in fancy he could see Miss Penelope, aged seven months, helping "Cousin Josephine" to maintain the dignity of their mutual girlhood, as against a square full of rollicking lads.
Presently everybody was laughing, for happiness is delightfully infectious, and always even more "catching" than the measles. Grandma Merriman and Cousin Desire, who had come quietly into the room; the three black "boys" in the hall outside; the two Uncle Joes and Michael; and most heartily, most musically of all, the little San Diegan, who for very joy could not keep still, but went skipping and flying about the room, like a bewilderingly lovely butterfly, demanding between whiles of the person nearest:
"Oh, isn't it beautiful, beautiful? Aren't
