“Mrs. Welcome,” aunt Malvina had just remarked, “has got a little colored boy as black as Toby to wait on table.”

Letitia opened her sober, light gray eyes very wide, and stared reflectively at aunt Malvina.

“It was dark as Pokonoket when we came out of church last night,” said aunt Malvina after a time, in the course of conversation.

Letitia stared reflectively at her again.

“There’s my car coming around the corner!” cried aunt Malvina, and ran friskily out of the room.  Just outside the door she turned and thrust her face, with the little gray curls dancing around it, in again for a last word.  “O, Jack!” cried she, “I hear that Edward Simonds’ eldest son is as crazy as a loon!”

“Is?”

“Yes; isn’t it dreadful?  Good-by!” Aunt Malvina frisked airily downstairs, and out on the street, barely in time to secure her car.

When Letitia heard the front door close after her, she quilted her needle carefully into her square, then she folded the patchwork up neatly, rose, and laid it together with her thimble, scissors, and cotton, in her little rocking-chair.  Then she went and stood still before uncle Jack, with her arms folded.  It was a way she had when she wanted information.  People rather smiled to see Letitia sometimes, but uncle Jack had always encouraged her in it; he said it was quaint.  Letitia’s face was very sober, and very innocent, and very round, and her hair was very long and light, and hung in two smooth braids, with a neat blue bow on the end of each, down her back.

[Illustration:  LETITIA STOOD BEFORE UNCLE JACK.]

Uncle Jack gazed inquiringly at her through his half-closed eyes.  “What is it, Letitia?”

“Aunt Malvina said ‘as black as Toby,’” said Letitia with a look half of inquiry, half of anxious abstraction.  What Letitia could find out herself she never asked other people.

“Yes; I know she did,” replied uncle Jack.

“Then she said, ‘Dark as Pokonoket.’”

“Yes; she said that too.”

“And then she said, ‘Crazy as a loon.’”

“Yes; she did.”

“Uncle Jack, what is Toby, and what is Pokonoket, and what is a loon?”

“Toby,” said uncle Jack slowly and impressively, “lives in Pokonoket, and keeps a loon.”

“Oh!” said Letitia, in a tone which implied that she was both relieved and amazed at her own stupidity.

“Yes; perhaps you would like to hear something more particular about Toby—­how he got married, for instance?”

“I should, very much indeed,” replied Letitia gravely and promptly.

“Well, you had better sit down; it will take a few minutes to tell it.”

Letitia carefully took her patchwork, her thimble, her spool of cotton, and her scissors out of her little rocking-chair and laid them on the table; then she sat down, and crossed her hands in her lap.