The King family expect their Aunt Eliza to visit them in January.
She is really our great-aunt. We have never seen her but we are told she is very deaf and does not like children. So Aunt Janet says we must make ourselves scarece when she comes.
Miss Cecily King has undertaken to fill with names a square of the missionary quilt which the Mission Band is making. You pay five cents to have your name embroidered in a corner, ten cents to have it in the centre, and a quarter if you want it left off altogether. (CECILY, INDIGNANTLY:--"That isn't the way at all.")
ADS.
WANTED--A remedy to make a fat boy thin. Address, "Patient Sufferer, care of Our Magazine."
(FELIX, SOURLY:--"Sara Ray never got that up. I'll bet it was Dan. He'd better stick to his own department.")
HOUSEHOLD DEPARTMENT Mrs. Alexander King killed all her geese the twentieth of December. We all helped pick them. We had one Christmas Day and will have one every fortnight the rest of the winter.
The bread was sour last week because mother wouldn't take my advice. I told her it was too warm for it in the corner behind the stove.
Miss Felicity King invented a new recete for date cookies recently, which everybody said were excelent. I am not going to publish it though, because I don't want other people to find it out.
ANXIOUS INQUIRER:--If you want to remove inkstains place the stain over steam and apply salt and lemon juice. If it was Dan who sent this question in I'd advise him to stop wiping his pen on his shirt sleeves and then he wouldn't have so many stains.
FELICITY KING.
ETIQUETTE DEPARTMENT F-l-x:--Yes, you should offer your arm to a lady when seeing her home, but don't keep her standing too long at the gate while you say good night.
(FELIX, ENRAGED:--"I never asked such a question.")
C-c-l-y:--No, it is not polite to use "Holy Moses" or "dodgasted" in ordinary conversation.
(Cecily had gone down cellar to replenish the apple plate, so this passed without protest.)
S-r-a:--No, it isn't polite to cry all the time. As to whether you should ask a young man in, it all depends on whether he went home with you of his own accord or was sent by some elderly relative.
F-l-t-y:--It does not break any rule of etiquette if you keep a button off your best young man's coat for a keepsake. But don't take more than one or his mother might miss them.
DAN KING.
FASHION NOTES Knitted mufflers are much more stylish than crocheted ones this winter. It is nice to have one the same colour as your cap.
Red mittens with a black diamond pattern on the back are much run after. Em Frewen's grandma knits hers for her. She can knit the double diamond pattern and Em puts on such airs about it, but I think the single diamond is in better taste.
The new winter hats at Markdale are very pretty. It is so exciting to pick a hat. Boys can't have that fun. Their hats are so much alike.
CECILY KING.
FUNNY PARAGRAPHS This is a true joke and really happened.
There was an old local preacher in New Brunswick one time whose name was Samuel Clask. He used to preach and pray and visit the sick just like a regular minister. One day he was visiting a neighbour who was dying and he prayed the Lord to have mercy on him because he was very poor and had worked so hard all his life that he hadn't much time to attend to religion.
"And if you don't believe me, O Lord," Mr. Clask finished up with, "just take a look at his hands."
FELIX KING.
GENERAL INFORMATION BUREAU DAN:--Do porpoises grow on trees or vines?
Ans. Neither. They inhabit the deep sea.
FELIX KING.
(DAN, AGGRIEVED:--"Well, I'd never heard of porpoises and it sounded like something that grew. But you needn't have gone and put it in the paper."
FELIX:--"It isn't any worse than the things you put in about me that I never asked at all."
CECILY, SOOTHINGLY:--"Oh, well, boys, it's all in fun, and I think Our Magazine is perfectly elegant."
FELICITY, FAILING TO SEE THE STORY GIRL AND BEVERLEY EXCHANGING WINKS BEHIND HER BACK:--"It certainly is, though SOME PEOPLE were so opposed to starting it.")
What harmless, happy fooling it all was! How we laughed as we read and listened and devoured apples! Blow high, blow low, no wind can ever quench the ruddy glow of that faraway winter night in our memories. And though Our Magazine never made much of a stir in the world, or was the means of hatching any genius, it continued to be capital fun for us throughout the year.
