“Probably not.  Don’t hitch your wagon to too far a star, Worthie.  No use smashing the wagon.”

Suddenly Ann had squeezed her puppy very tight.  “O—­h,” cried Worth, “you mustn’t!  I like to do it, too, but Watts says it squeezes the grows out of ’em.  It’s hard not to squeeze ’em though, ain’t it?” he concluded with tolerance.

Again Katie looked up.  The girl, holding the puppy close, was looking at the little boy.  Something long beaten back seemed rushing on; and in her eyes was the consciousness of its having been long beaten back.

Something of which did not escape the astute Wayne the Worthy.  “Aunt Kate,” he called excitedly, “Aunt Kate—­Miss Ann’s eyes go such a long way down!”

“Worth, I’m not at all sure that it is the best of form for a grown-up young gentleman of six summers to be audibly estimating the fathomless depths of a young woman’s eyes.  Note well the word audibly, Worthie.”

“They go farther down than yours, Aunt Kate.”

“’Um—­yes; another remark better left with the inaudible.”

“It looks—­it looks as if there was such a lot of cries in them! o—­h—­one’s coming now!”

“Worth,” she called sharply, “come here.  You mustn’t talk to Miss Ann about cries, dear.  When you talk about cries it brings the cries, and when you talk about laughs the laughs come, and Miss Ann is so pretty when she laughs.”

“Miss Ann is pretty all the time,” announced gallant Worth.  “She has a mouth like—­a mouth like—­She has a mouth like—­”

“Yes dear, I understand.  When they say ’She has a mouth like—­a mouth like—­’ I know just what kind of mouth they mean.”

“But how do you know, Aunt Kate?  I didn’t say what kind, did I?”

“No; but as years and wisdom and guile descend upon you, you will learn that sometimes the surest way of making one’s self clear is not to say what one means.”

“But I don’t see—­”

“No, one doesn’t—­at six.  Wait till you’ve added twenty thereto.”

“Aunt Kate?”

“Yes?”

“How old is Miss Ann?”

“Worth, when this twenty I’m talking about has been added on, you will know that never, never, never must one speak or think or dream of a lady’s age.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, because it brings the cries—­lots of times.”

He had seated himself on the floor.  The puppy was in spasms of excitement over the discovery of a considerable expanse of bare legs.

“Are they sorry they’re not as old as somebody else?” he asked, trying to get his legs out of the puppy’s lurching reach.

“No, they’re usually able to endure the grief brought them by that thought.”

“Aunt Kate?”

“Oh—­yes?” It was a good story.

“Would Miss Ann be sorry she’s not as old as you?”

“Hateful, ungrateful little wretch!”

“Aunt Kate?”

“I am all attention, Wayneworth,” she said, with inflection which should not have been wasted on ears too young.