“When?” Noble asked impulsively.  “When did she say that?”

“Oh, I d’ know,” said Herbert.  “I expect she proba’ly says it to somebody or other about every evening there is.”

“She does?”

“Florence says so,” Herbert informed him carelessly.  “Florence goes over to grandpa’s after dark and sits on the ground up against the porch and listens.”

Noble first looked startled then uneasily reminiscent.  “I don’t believe Florence ought to do that,” he said gravely.

“I wouldn’t do it!” Herbert was emphatic.

“That’s right, Herbert.  I’m glad you wouldn’t.”

“No, sir,” the manly boy declared.  “You wouldn’t never catch me takin’ my death o’ cold sittin’ on the damp grass in the night air just to listen to a lot o’ tooty-tooty about ‘I’ve named a star for you,’ and all such.  You wouldn’t catch me——­”

Noble partly concealed a sudden anguish.  “Who?” he interrupted.  “Who did she say that to?”

“She didn’t.  They say it to her, and she says?  ’Oh, you don’t mean that!’ and of course then they haf to go on and say some more.  Florence says——­” He checked himself.  “Oh, I forgot!  I promised Florence I wouldn’t tell anything about all this.”

“It’s safe,” Noble assured him quickly.  “I’m quite a friend of Florence’s and it’s absolutely safe with me.  I won’t speak of it to anybody, Herbert.  Who was it told her he’d named a star for her?”

“It was the way some ole poem began.  Newland Sanders wrote it.  Florence found it under Aunt Julia’s sofa-cushions and read it all through, but I wouldn’t wade through all that tooty-tooty for a million dollars, and I told her to put it back before Aunt Julia noticed.  Well, about every day he writes her a fresh one, and then in the evening he stays later than the rest, and reads ’em to her—­and you ought to hear grandpa when he gets to talkin’ about it!”

“He’s perfectly right,” said Noble.  “Perfectly!  What does he say when he talks about it, Herbert?”

“Oh, he says all this and that; and then he kind of mutters around, and you can’t tell just what all the words are exactly, so’t he can deny it if any o’ the family accuses him of swearing or anything.”  And Herbert added casually:  “He was kind of goin’ on like that about you, night before last.”

“About me!  Why, what could he say about me?”

“Oh, all this and that.”

“But what did he find to say?”

“Well, he heard her tellin’ you how you oughtn’t to smoke so many cigarettes and all about how it was killin’ you, and you sayin’ you guessed it wouldn’t matter if you did die, and Aunt Julia sayin’ ’Oh, you don’t mean that,’ and all this and such and so on, you know.  He can hear anything on the porch pretty good from the lib’ary; and Florence told me about that, besides, because she was sittin’ in the grass and all.  She told Great-Uncle Joe and Aunt Hattie about it, too.”