“I don’t believe you’ve opened your lips since Cousin Claudia went up-stairs,” she said.  “I don’t wonder you don’t know where you went this afternoon if you didn’t see any more than you’re hearing now.  You don’t know a thing I’ve been talking about.”

Laine raised his head with a start.  “Oh yes, I do.  You were saying—­saying—­”

“I told you so!  You didn’t even know where you were!  You were way off somewhere.”  Dorothea’s voice was triumphant.  “I want to ask you something, Uncle Winthrop.  I won’t tell anybody.”  She settled herself more comfortably on the stool at his feet, and crossed her arms on his knees.  “Don’t you think my Cousin Claudia is nice?”

“Very nice.”  Laine took out his handkerchief, wiped his glasses, and held them to the light.

“And don’t you think she has a lovely mouth?  When she talks I watch her like I haven’t got a bit of sense.”  Dorothea scanned her uncle’s face critically.  “Your eyes are dark; and hers are light, with dark rims around the seeing part, and she just comes to your shoulder; but you look so nice together.  I hope you feel sorry about the things you said about her before she came.”

“What things?”

“That maybe her face was red and her hair was red and her hands were red, or if they weren’t, maybe they were blue.  Aren’t you sorry?”

“Very sorry, Dorothea.  I was rude and tired and worried that evening.  Let’s forget it.”

“I never have told her, but I supposed you must have changed your mind, for you’ve been here so much lately, and gone to so many places with her that you don’t like to go to, that I thought—­”

“Thought what, Dorothea?”

“That maybe—­” Dorothea stroked Laine’s fingers one by one—­“maybe you liked her a little bit.  Don’t you remember I asked you please to like her, and you didn’t seem to think you would.  But you do, don’t you?  I won’t tell anybody.  Don’t you like her, Uncle Winthrop?”

“I like her very much, Dorothea.”  Into Laine’s clear-cut face the color crept to his temples, “She is very different from any one I’ve—­”

“I knew you would.”  Dorothea’s hands came together excitedly.  “I knew it the minute I saw her, for she isn’t a bit frilly, and you don’t like frills any more than I do, and she doesn’t, either.  She’s sees through people like they were glass, and she tells us the grandest, shiveringest, funniest stories you ever heard.  I bet she’s telling Channing one this minute.  She loves children.  I’m so glad you like her, Uncle Winthrop.  I knew you would if you saw her, but I didn’t know you’d see her so much.”

“How could I help it if I saw her once?  The trouble has been to get her to see me.  Perhaps she thinks I am too old to—­”

“Oh, she knows you aren’t the sweetheart kind—­Miss Robin French told her so, and mother and everybody says you are too set in your ways to get married, and that’s why I think she likes you, because you aren’t that sort.  She hates flum talk, and you talk sense and things.  She told father so.  Here she is now.  Please stay with Uncle Winthrop, Cousin Claudia, while I ask mother if I may take dinner with you.”  Dorothea got up.  “You took off your riding boots, didn’t you?”