“Well, when any nice people ask me, I hope there will be a ’reason why.’  It’s the persons of consequence that make the ‘reason why.’”

And Desire had the last word.

* * * * *

Hazel Ripwinkley was thinking neither of large holes nor little ones,—­cats nor kittens; she was saying to Luclarion, sitting in her shady down-stairs room behind the kitchen, that looked out into the green yard corner, “how nicely things came out, after all!”

“They seemed so hobblety at first, when I went up there and saw all those beautiful books, and pictures, and people living amongst them every day, and the poor Kincaids not getting the least bit of a stretch out of their corner, ever.  I’ll tell you what I thought, Luclarion;” and here she almost whispered, “I truly did.  I thought God was making a mistake.”

Luclarion put out her lips into a round, deprecating pucker, at that, and drew in her breath,—­

“Oo—­sh!”

“Well, I mean it seemed as if there was a mistake somewhere; and that I’d no business, at any rate, with what they wanted so.  I couldn’t get over it until I asked for those pictures; and mother said it was such a bold thing to do!”

“It was bold,” said Luclarion; “but it wasn’t forrud.  It was gi’n you, and it hit right.  That was looked out for.”

“It’s a stumpy world,” said Luclarion Grapp to Mrs. Ripwinkley, afterward; “but some folks step right over their stumps athout scarcely knowin’ when!”

XII.

CRUMBS.

Desire Ledwith was, at this epoch, a perplexity and a worry,—­even a positive terror sometimes,—­to her mother.

It was not a case of the hen hatching ducks, it was rather as if a hen had got a hawk in her brood.

Desire’s demurs and questions,—­her dissatisfactions, sittings and contempts,—­threatened now and then to swoop down upon the family life and comfort with destroying talons.

“She’ll be an awful, strong-minded, radical, progressive, overturning woman,” Laura said, in despair, to her friend Mrs. Megilp.  “And Greenley Street, and Aspen Street, and that everlasting Miss Craydocke, are making her worse.  And what can I do?  Because there’s Uncle.”

Right before Desire,—­not knowing the cloud of real bewilderment that was upon her young spiritual perceptions, getting their first glimpse of a tangled and conflicting and distorted world,—­she drew wondering comparisons between her elder children and this odd, anxious, restless, sharp-spoken girl.

“I don’t understand it,” she would say.  “It isn’t a bit like a child of mine.  I always took things easy, and got the comfort of them somehow; I think the world is a pretty pleasant place to live in, and there’s lots of satisfaction to be had; and Agatha and Florence take after me; they are nice, good-natured, contented girls; managing their allowances,—­that I wish were more,—­trimming their own bonnets, and enjoying themselves with their friends, girl-fashion.”