“Well, because!  I kind of thought he must be married, or anyways somep’m, when he talked to Mr. Genesis this mornin’.  He said he knew how some people got married in Pennsylvania an’ India, an’ he said they were only seven or eight years old.  He said so, an’ I heard him; an’ he said there were eleven people married that were only seventeen, an’ this boy in Iowa got a full beard an’ got married, too.  An’ he said Mr. Genesis was only sixteen when he was married.  He talked all about gettin’ married when you’re seventeen years old, an’ he said how people thought it was the best thing could happen.  So I just know he’s almost married!”

Mr. Baxter chuckled, and Mrs. Baxter smiled, but a shade of thoughtfulness, a remote anxiety, tell upon the face of the latter.

“You haven’t any other reason, have you, Jane?” she asked.

“Yes’m,” said Jane, promptly.  “An’ it’s a more reason than any!  Miss Pratt calls you ‘mamma’ as if you were her mamma.  She does it when she talks to Willie.”

“Jane!”

“Yes m, I heard her.  An’ Willie said, ’I don’t know what you’ll think about mother.’  He said, ‘I don’t know what you’ll think about mother,’ to Miss Pratt.”

Mrs. Baxter looked a little startled, and her husband frowned.  Jane mistook their expressions for incredulity.  “They did, mamma,” she protested.  “That’s just the way they talked to each other.  I heard ’em this afternoon, when Willie had papa’s cane.”

“Maybe they were doing it to tease you, if you were with them,” Mr. Baxter suggested.

“I wasn’t with ’em.  I was sailin’ my boat, an’ they came along, an’ first they never saw me, an’ Willie looked—­oh, papa, I wish you’d seen him!” Jane rose to her feet in her excitement.  “His face was so funny, you never saw anything like it!  He was walkin’ along with it turned sideways, an’ all the time he kept walkin’ frontways, he kept his face sideways—­like this, papa.  Look, papa!” And she gave what she considered a faithful imitation of William walking with Miss Pratt.  “Look, papa!  This is the way Willie went.  He had it sideways so’s he could see Miss.  Pratt, papa.  An’ his face was just like this.  Look, papa!” She contorted her features in a terrifying manner.  “Look, papa!”

“Don’t, Jane!” her mother exclaimed.

“Well, I haf to show papa how Willie looked, don’t I?” said Jane, relaxing.  “That’s just the way he looked.  Well, an’ then they stopped an’ talked to me, an’ Miss Pratt said, ‘It’s our little sister.’”

“Did she really?” Mrs. Baxter asked, gravely.

“Yes’m, she did.  Soon as she saw who I was, she said, ’Why, it’s our little sister!’ Only she said it that way she talks—­sort of foolish.  ‘It’s our ittle sissy’—­somep’m like that, mamma.  She said it twice an’ told me to go home an’ get washed up.  An’ Miss Pratt told Willie—­Miss Pratt said, ‘It isn’t mamma’s fault Jane’s so dirty,’ just like that.  She—­”