“There wasn’t a bit of fun, Rosie,” he complained to her after all had returned to the parlor.

“Wait a little,” she answered, “perhaps it will come yet.”

“Before I have to go to bed?”

“I hope so.  Suppose you go and tell Cousin Ronald you want some fun.  He knows how to make it.  But be sure to whisper it in his ear.”

Walter did as directed.

“Wait a wee, bairnie, and see what will happen,” Cousin Ronald answered in an undertone, and with a low pleasant laugh as he lifted the little fellow to his knee.

Mr. Dinsmore sat near at hand, the ladies had gathered about the centre-table with their work, while Lester Leland and Edward Travilla hovered near their wives, the one with a newspaper, the other merely watching the busy fingers of the fair workers and making jesting comments upon what they were doing.

But presently there was a sudden commotion in their midst, one after another springing from her chair with a little startled cry and trying to dodge what, from the sound, seemed to be an enormous bumble bee circling round and round their heads and in and out among them.  “Buzz! buzz! buzz!” surely never bumble bee buzzed so loud before.

“Oh, catch it! kill it, Edward!” cried Zoe, with a half frantic rush to the farther side of the room.  “Oh, here it comes after me!  It’s settling on my hair!  Oh!”

“No, dear, it isn’t, there is really nothing there,” Edward said soothingly, yet with a laugh, for a second thought had told him the real cause of the disturbance.

“I believe it’s gone,” she said, drawing a long breath of relief, as she turned her head this way and that, “but where did it go to? and how strange for one to be flying about this time of year!”

The other ladies exchanging amused glances and smiles, were drawing round the table again when a loud “cluck, cluck” came from beneath it.

“Oh, there she is! there’s the old hen Max brought!” cried Walter, springing from Mr. Lilburn’s knee to run to the table.

Stooping down he peeped under it.  “Why, no, she’s not there!” he said in wonder and disappointment.  “Ah, yonder she is! behind that window curtain,” as “cluck, cluck cluck,” came from a distant corner.  “Max, Max, catch her quick, ’fore she gets away!”

Max ran and hastily drew aside the curtain.

There was nothing there, as Walter, Lulu and Gracie, who had all rushed to the spot, perceived with amazement.

“Hark!” said Mr. Dinsmore, and as a death-like silence fell upon the room the “cluck, cluck, cluck” was distinctly heard from the hall.

Out rushed the children and searched its whole length, but without finding the intruder.

Back they came to report their failure.  Then dogs, big and little, barked and growled, now here, now there, little pigs squealed, cats meowed, and mice squealed from the corners, under sofas and chairs, in the ladies’ laps, in the gentlemen’s pockets, yet not one could be seen.