For one thing, her passion for bread-and-butter, covered with apple sauce and powdered sugar, was getting to be a serious matter.  Secretly, William was not yet so changed by love as to be wholly indifferent to this refection himself, but his consumption of it was private, whereas Jane had formed the habit of eating it in exposed places—­such as the front yard or the sidewalk.  At no hour of the day was it advisable for a relative to approach the neighborhood in fastidious company, unless prepared to acknowledge kinship with a spindly young person either eating bread-and-butter and apple sauce and powdered sugar, or all too visibly just having eaten bread-and-butter and apple sauce and powdered sugar.  Moreover, there were times when Jane had worse things than apple sauce to answer for, as William made clear to his mother in an oration as hot as the July noon sun which looked down upon it.

Mrs. Baxter was pleasantly engaged with a sprinkling-can and some small flower-beds in the shady back yard, and Jane, having returned from various sidewalk excursions, stood close by as a spectator, her hands replenished with the favorite food and her chin rising and falling in gentle motions, little prophecies of the slight distensions which passed down her slender throat with slow, rhythmic regularity.  Upon this calm scene came William, plunging round a corner of the house, furious yet plaintive.

“You’ve got to do something about that child!” he began.  “I can not stand it!”

Jane looked at him dumbly, not ceasing, how ever, to eat; while Mrs. Baxter thoughtfully continued her sprinkling.

“You’ve been gone all morning, Willie,” she said.  “I thought your father mentioned at breakfast that he expected you to put in at least four hours a day on your mathematics and—­”

“That’s neither here nor there,” William returned, vehemently.  “I just want to say this:  if you don’t do something about Jane, I will!  Just look at her!  Look at her, I ask you!  That’s just the way she looked half an hour ago, out on the public sidewalk in front of the house, when I came by here with Miss Pratt!  That was pleasant, wasn’t it?  To be walking with a lady on the public street and meet a member of my family looking like that!  Oh, lovely!”

In the anguish of this recollection his voice cracked, and though his eyes were dry his gestures wept for him.  Plainly, he was about to reach the most lamentable portion of his narrative.  “And then she hollered at me!  She hollered, ‘Oh, will—­ee!’” Here he gave an imitation of Jane’s voice, so damnatory that Jane ceased to eat for several moments and drew herself up with a kind of dignity.  “She hollered, ‘Oh, will—­ee’ at me!” he stormed.  “Anybody would think I was about six years old!  She hollered, ‘Oh, Will—­ee,’ and she rubbed her stomach and slushed apple sauce all over her face, and she kept hollering, ‘Will—­ee!’ with her mouth full.  ’Will—­ee, look!  Good!  Bread-and-butter and apple sauce and sugar!  I bet you wish you had some, Will—­ee!’”