The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-12-29

tContinued from YesterdaY.) "I have a friend who would come for me- said Julia stiffly. thinking of Mark.
 For just a second mirth threatened Barbara's dignity. but she said staid- That's fine, And remember. we
 CHAPTER -IV.
 The family of Dr. Robert Poland, discovered at breakfast in the TOlands' big house in Sausa1ito on an exquisite May morning, presented to the casual Onlooker as charming picture of home life as might be found in the length and breadth or with it's windows wide open to sun shine and fresh sea air, the snowy curtains blowing softly to and fro' the wide sideboard where the chll- dren's outgrown mugs stood in a bat tered and glittering row, the one or two stiff flat, old oil portraits that looked down from the walls. the Jars of yellow acacia bloom, and bowls or mingled wild flowers; these made a setting wonderfully well suited to the long, table and the happy family about it.
 There were seven children, five girls and two boys; there was the gracious, genial mother at the head and the wiry, gray-haired and gray bearded surgeon at the foot; there was, as usual, Jim Studdiford' and  Sanna, an unmarried younger sister of the doctor. and little black-eyed, delicate ten-year-old guest of the eleven-year-old Jamie, Keith Bor- roughs who was sitting near to Jamie, and evidently adoring that spirited chatterbox. And there was Addie, a cheerful black-clad person in a cracking white apron, coming and going with mullins and bacon. and Toy. who was a young cousin of Hee, the cook, and who padded softly In Addie's wake, making himself gener- ally useful.
 Barbara. very pretty, very casual as to what she ate, sat next to her father; she was the oldest of the seven Hollands, and slipping very re- luctantly out of her eighteenth year Ned, a big handsome fellow of six teen, came next in point of age, and then a tall, lanky, awkward blond boy. Richie, with a plain thin lace and the sweetest smile of them all Richie never moved without the aid of a crutch, and perhaps never would After Richie, and nearing fourteen was a sweet. fat. giggling lump of girl called Sally. with beautiful skin and beautiful untidy hair. ant a petticoat always dragging, a collal buttoned awry, and a belt that never bv any chance united her brett! shirt waist to her crisp linen skirt Only a year younger than Sally wa: Theodore, whose staid. precociou! beauty Barbara alreay found dis
 
 signs of rivaling her oldest sister then came Jane, bold, handsome boyish at eleven, and lastly eight year-old Constance. a delicate, pretty fearful little girl who was spoiled b, every m nlenlber of the family.
 The children's mother was a plumr handsome little woman with bright flashing eyes, dimples and lovely littl hands covered with rings. There wa no gray in her prettily puffed hair and, if she was stouter than any O her daughters, none could show more trimly controlled figure. Mrs ToIand had been impressed in tn days of her happy girlhood with tn romantic phiIosophies of the seven ties To her. an impulsive youn woman brinful of the zest of living all babies had been ''just too dea and sweet" all marriages were "sim ply lovely'' regardless of circun stances, and all men were just tn dearest great big manly fellows tha ever werei' As Miss Sally Ford, MT: ToIand had flashed about on man visits to- her girl friends adnliring, ex claiming, rejoicing in their joys, an now as a mother of growing gir and boys, there still hung betwee her and real life the curtain of he