“The secret is, my dimples is the kind that takes longer to vanish ’em out when you once vanished ’em in.  Mine’s way-train dimples.  Miss Lang’s is express.  But you can take it from me, dimples is faskinatin’, whatever specie they are.”

“What’s faskinatin’?"

“It’s the thing in some things that, when it ain’t in other things, you don’t care a thing about ’em.”

“Are you faskinatin’?”

“That’s not for me to say,” said Martha, feigning coyness.  “But this much I will confess, that some folks which shall be nameless, considers me so.  An’ they’d oughter know.”

“Is Miss Lang faskinatin’?”

“Ask your Uncle Frank.”

“Why must I ask him?”

“If you wanter know.”

“Does he know?”

“Prob’ly.  He’s a very well-informed gen’l-man on most subjecks.”

“I do’ want to ask my Uncle Frank anything about Miss Lang.  Once I asked him somethin’ about her, an’ he didn’t like it.”

“What’d you ask him?”

“I asked him if she wasn’t his best girl.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said ‘No!’ quick, just like that—­’No!’ I guess he was cross with me, an’ I know he didn’t like it.  When I asked my mother why he didn’t like it, she said because Miss Lang’s only my governess.  An’ when I told Miss Lang what my mother, she told me, Miss Lang, she didn’t like it either.”

“Now, what do you think o’ that?” ejaculated Martha.  “Nobody didn’t seem to like nothin’ in that combination, did they?  You was the only one in the whole outfit that showed any tack.”

“What means that—­tack?"

“It’s a little thing that you use when you want to keep things in place—­keep ’em from fallin’ down.  There’s two kinds.  One you must hammer in, an’ the other you mustn’t.”

“I wisht Miss Lang was my Uncle Frank’s best girl.  But I guess she’s somebody else’s.”

“Eh?” said Martha sharply, sitting back on her heels and twisting her polishing-cloth into a rope, as if she were wringing it out.  “Now, whose best girl do you think she is, if I may make so bold?”

Radcliffe settled down to business.

“Yesterday Miss Lang an’ me was comin’ home from the Tippydrome, an’ my mother she had comp’ny in the drawin’-room.  An’ I didn’t know there was comp’ny first-off, coz Shaw he didn’t tell us, an’ I guess I talked kinder loud in the hall, an’ my mother she heard me, an’ she wasn’t cross or anythin’, she just called to me to come along in, an’ see the comp’ny.  An’ I said, ‘No, I won’t!  Not less Miss Lang comes too.’  An’ my mother, she said, ‘Miss Lang, come too.’  An’ Miss Lang, she didn’t wanter, but she hadter.  An’ the comp’ny was a gen’l’man an’ a lady, an’ the minit the gen’l’man, he saw Miss Lang, he jumped up outer his chair like a jumpin’-jack, an’ his eyes got all kinder sparkly, an’ he held out both of his hands to her, an’ sorter shook her hands, till you’d