“Dear,” she said, in her rich, throaty, strong voice as she looked pleadingly at the militant midget facing her.  Suddenly I was that lonesome, homesick freshman by the waters of Lake Waban, with Jane’s awkward young arm around me, and I stood aside to let Henrietta come into her heritage of Jane.  “Don’t you want to come with us?” was the soft question that followed the commanding word of endearment.

“No!” was the short, but slightly mollified answer as Henrietta dug her toes into the dust and began to look fascinated.

“I’m glad you don’t want to come, because I’ve got some very important business to ask you to attend to for me,” answered Jane, in the brisk tone of voice she uses in doing business with women, and which interests them intensely by its very novelty and flatters them by seeming to endow them with a kind of brain they didn’t know they possessed.  “I want you to go upstairs and get my pocketbook.  Be careful, for there is over a hundred dollars in the roll of bills—­Evelina will give you the key to the desk—­and go down to the drug store where they keep nice little clocks and buy me the best one they have.  Then please you wind it up yourself and watch it all day to see if it keeps time with the clock in your hall, and if it varies more than one minute, take it back and get another.  While you are in the drug store, if you have time, won’t you please select me a new tooth-brush and some nice kind of paste that you think is good?  Make them show you all they have.  Pay for it out of one of the bills.”

“Want any good, smelly soap?” I came out of my trance of absolute admiration to hear Henrietta ask in the capable voice of a secretary to a millionaire.  Her thin little face was flushed with excitement and importance, and she edged two feet nearer the charmer.

“It would be a good thing to get about a half dozen cakes, wouldn’t it?” answered Jane, with slight uncertainty in her voice as if leaving the decision of the matter partly to Henrietta.

“Yes, I believe I would,” Henrietta decided judicially.  “The ’New Mown Hay’ is what Jasper got for Petunia because he hit her too hard last week and swelled her eye.  They is a perfumery that goes with it at one quarter a bottle.  That makes it all cheaper.”

“Exactly the thing, and we mustn’t spend money unnecessarily,” Jane agreed.  “But I don’t want to trespass on your time, Henrietta, dear,” she added with the deference she would have used in speaking to the President of the Nation League or the founder of Hull House.

“No, ma’am, I’m glad to do it, and I’ll go quick ’fore it gets any later in the day for me to watch the clock,” answered Henrietta in stately tones that were very like Jane’s and which I had never heard her employ before.

And before any of the three of us got our breath her bare little feet were flashing up my front walk.

“Help!” exclaimed Polk as he leaned back from his wheel and fanned himself with his hat.  “Do you use the same methods with grown beasts that you do with cubs?” he added weakly.