Try
and find out from Max."
"Maxy, dear," Hannah said, imploringly, "is it covered with plush?"
"Why, how do you know?" Max cried, unguardedly, as he was finishing his
sixth cookey.
"I knew it, I knew it," Liseke gasped, wildly.
"Does it make a noise if, well, say, if you bang on it?" Hannah cried,
with a beating heart.
"Why--why--yes," Max acknowledged, wrathfully, with a futile kick at
Mitz's mother, who was purring about his legs. "There, you mean thing,
you're always trying to find out something! Just you wait till I tell
yer anything more!" he cried, and slam-banged himself out of the room,
with his bosom full of suppressed injuries.
"He was mad because we guessed," Liseke cried, joyfully.
"A piano!" Hannah gasped, as the door went to with a crash.
"A stool," Liseke added; then, "Let's tell mamma!"
That dear, gentle mother, sitting by the dim window trying to mend by
the last flicker of daylight! She looked up lovingly as the door flew
open.
"Mamma," gasped Hannah, "papa's got a surprise for us."
"Max said so," chimed in the other. "We've guessed, mother dear."
"It's a piano."
"And--and a stool."
[Illustration: MAX KNOWS OF A SURPRISE.]
"He said it'ud make a noise; and was covered with plush."
"O, dear children, surely papa wouldn't buy you a piano. He can not
afford it," and two kind hands were stretched out to the children.
"Oh, yes it is," the two cried hopefully.
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