“About the King of Spain?” Mrs. Atwater inquired.

“I don’t know who they were saying it about,” said Florence, “but they were saying it.  I don’t mean they were saying it together; I heard one say it one time and the other say it some other time.  I think Kitty Silver was saying it about some coloured man.  She proba’ly wouldn’t want to marry any white man; at least I don’t expect she would.  She’s been married to a couple of coloured men, anyhow; and she was married twice to one of ’em, and the other one died in between.  Anyhow, that’s what she told me.  She weighed over two hunderd pounds the first time she was married, and she weighed over two hunderd-and-seventy the last time she was married to the first one over again, but she says she don’t know how much she weighed when she was married to the one in between.  She says she never got weighed all the time she was married to that one.  Did Kitty Silver ever tell you that, mamma?”

“Yes, often!” Mrs. Atwater replied.  “I don’t think it’s very entertaining; and it’s not what we were talking about.  I was trying to tell you——­”

“I know,” Florence interrupted.  “You said I’d get my face so’s my underlip wouldn’t go back where it ought to, if I didn’t quit turning up my nose at people I think are beneath contemp’.  I guess the best thing would be to just feel that way without letting on by my face, and then there wouldn’t be any danger.”

“No,” said Mrs. Atwater.  “That’s not what I meant.  You mustn’t let your feelings get their nose turned up, or their underlip out, either, because feelings can grow warped just as well as——­”

But her remarks had already caused her daughter to follow a trail of thought divergent from the main road along which the mother feebly struggled to progress.  “Mamma,” said Florence, “do you b’lieve it’s true if a person swallows an apple-seed or a lemon-seed or a watermelon-seed, f’r instance, do you think they’d have a tree grow up inside of ’em?  Henry Rooter said it would, yesterday.”

Mrs. Atwater looked a little anxious.  “Did you swallow some sort of seed?” she asked.

“It was only some grape-seeds, mamma; and you needn’t think I got to take anything for it, because I’ve swallowed a million, I guess, in my time!”

“In your time?” her mother repeated, seemingly mystified.

“Yes, and so have you and papa,” Florence went on.  “I’ve seen you when you ate grapes.  Henry said maybe not, about grapes, because I told him all what I’ve just been telling you, mamma, how I must have swallowed a million, in my time, and he said grape-seeds weren’t big enough to get a good holt, but he said if I was to swallow an apple-seed a tree would start up, and in a year or two, maybe, it would grow up so’t I couldn’t get my mouth shut on account the branches.”

“Nonsense!”