A MERRY JOKE The next morning, while Marjorie was dressing, she heard a great commotion in the halls.

Peeping out her door she saw maids running hither and thither with anxious, worried faces.

She heard her grandmother's voice in troubled accents, and Grandfather seemed to be trying to soothe her.
Naughty Marjorie well knew what it was all about, and chuckled with glee as she finished dressing, and went down to breakfast.
She found the family assembled in the breakfast room, and Grandma Maynard telling the story.

"Yes," she said, "I knew perfectly well that to have these children in the house, with their noise and racket, would so get on my nerves that it would turn my hair white, and it has done so!" Marjorie looked at Grandma Maynard's hair, and though not entirely white, it was evenly gray all over.

As she had laid her head on her plentifully-powdered pillow, and perhaps restlessly moved it about, the powder had distributed itself pretty evenly, and the result was a head of gray hair instead of the rich brown tresses of the night before.
Her son and daughter-in-law could not believe that this effect was caused by the disturbance made by their own children; but far less did they suspect the truth of the matter.