“I wasn’t home,” said Florence.  “I was over here.”

“Then you mus’ ‘a’ made you’se’f mighty skimpish, ’cause I ain’t seen you!”

“Nobody saw me.  I wasn’t in the house,” said Florence, “I was out in front.”

“Whurbouts ’out in front’?”

“Well, I was sitting on the ground, up against the latticework of the front porch.”

“Whut fur?”

“Well, it was dark,” said Florence.  “I just kind of wanted to see what might be going on.”

“An’ you hear all whut you’ grampaw take on about an’ ev’ything?”

“I should say so!  You could of heard him lots farther than where I was.”

“Lan’ o’ misery!” Kitty Silver cried.  “If you done hear him whur you was, thishere li’l Dills mus’ a-hear him mighty plain?”

“He did.  How could he help it?  He heard every word, and pretty soon he came down off the porch and stood a minute; then he went on out the gate, and I don’t know whether he went home or not, because it was too dark to see.  But he didn’t come back.”

“Yo’ right he didn’!” exclaimed Mrs. Silver.  “I reckon he got fo’thought ‘nough fer that, anyhow!  I bet he ain’t nev’ goin’ come back neither.  You’ grampaw say he goin’ be fix fer him, if he do.”

“Yes, that was while he was standing there,” said Florence ruefully.  “He heard all that, too.”

“Miss Julia, she s’picion’ he done hear somep’m ’nother, I guess,” Kitty Silver went on.  “She shet the liberry do’ right almos’ on you’ grampaw’s nose, whiles he still a-rampin’, an’ she slip out on the po’che, an’ take look ‘roun’; then go on up to her own room.  I ’uz up there, while after that, turn’ down her bed; an’ she injoyin’ herse’f readin’ book.  She feel kine o’ put out, I reckon, but she ain’t stedyin’ about no young li’l Dills.  She want ’em all to have nice time an’ like her, but she goin’ lose this one, an’ she got plenty to spare.  She show too much class fer to fret about no Dills.”

“I don’t care,” said Florence.  “I think she ought to whether she does or not, because I bet he was feeling just awful.  And I think grandpa behaved like an ole hoodlum.”

“That’ll do,” Herbert admonished her sternly.  “You show some respect for your relations, if you please.”

But his loyalty to the Atwater family had a bad effect on Florence.  “Oh, will I?” she returned promptly.  “Well, then, if you care to inquire my opinion, I just politely think grandpa ought to be hanged.”

“See here——­”

But Florence and Kitty Silver interrupted him simultaneously.

“Look at that!” Florence cried.

“My name!” exclaimed Kitty Silver.

It was the strange taste of Gammire that so excited them.  Florence had peeled her orange and divided it rather fairly into three parts, but the vehemence she exerted in speaking of her grandfather had caused her to drop one of these upon the ground.  Gammire promptly ate it, “sat up” and adjusted his paws in prayer for more.