“Now you’ve made me think of it,” cried Virginia, excitedly.  “I’ve thought of a good way.  We’ll give Jonesy a benefit, like great singers have.  The bear will be the star performer, and we’ll all act, too, and sell the tickets, and have tableaux.  I love to arrange tableaux.  We were always having them out at the fort.”

“I bid to show off the bear,” cried Malcolm, entering into Virginia’s plan at once.  “May be I’ll learn something to recite, too.”

“I’ll help print the tickets,” said Keith, “and go around selling them, and be in anything you want me to be.  How many tableaux are you going to have, Ginger?”

“I can’t tell yet,” she answered, but a moment after she cried out, her eyes shining with pleasure, “Oh, I’ve thought of a lovely one.  We can have the Little Colonel and the bear for ‘Beauty and the Beast.’”

Malcolm promptly turned a somersault on the rug, to express his approval, but came up with a grave face, saying, “I’ll bet that grandmother will say we can’t have it.”

“Let’s get Aunt Allison on our side,” suggested Virginia.  “She’s up in her room now, painting a picture.”

A little sigh of disappointment escaped Miss Allison’s lips, as she heard the rush of feet on the stairs.  This was the first time that she had touched her brushes since the children’s coming, and she had hoped that this one afternoon would be free from interruption, when she heard them planning their afternoon’s occupations at the lunch-table.  They had come back before the little water-colour sketch she was making was quite finished.

There was no disappointment, however, in the bright face she turned toward them, and Virginia lost no time in beginning her story.  She had been elected to tell it, but before it was done all three had had a part in the telling, and all three were waiting with wistful eyes for her answer.

“Well, what is it you want me to do?” she asked, finally.

“Oh, just be on our side!” they exclaimed, “and get grandmother to say yes.  You see she doesn’t feel about Jonesy the way we do.  She is willing to pay a great deal of money to have him taken off and cared for, but she says she doesn’t see how grandchildren of hers can be so interested in a little tramp that comes from nobody knows where, and who will probably end his days in a penitentiary.”

Aunt Allison answered Malcolm’s last remark a little sternly.  “You must understand that it is only for your own good that she is opposed to Jonesy’s staying,” she said.  “There is nobody in the valley so generous and kind to the poor as your grandmother.”  “Yes’m,” said Virginia, meekly, “but you’ll ask her, won’t you please, auntie?”

Miss Allison smiled at her persistence.  “Wait until I finish this,” she said.  “Then I’ll go down-stairs and put the matter before her, and report to you at dinner-time.  Now are you satisfied?”

“Yes,” they cried in chorus, “you’re on our side.  It’s all right now!” With a series of hearty hugs that left her almost breathless, they hurried away.