Mr. Chase’s reply to this illuminating disclosure was that he wanted to know.

“Yes,” said Mary-’Gusta, “David doesn’t take to dogs, some way.  Why don’t cats like dogs, Mr. Chase?”

Isaiah said that he cal’lated ’twas the nature of the critters not to.  Mary-’Gusta agreed with him.

“Natures are queer things, ain’t they?” she said, solemnly.  “I guess everybody has a nature, cats and all.  Mrs. Hobbs says my nature is a contrary one.  What’s your kind, Mr. Chase?

“Do you suppose,” she said, a few moments later, when the cook and steward had shown symptoms of doing something beside lean against the sink and whistle, “do you suppose you could get along for a few minutes while I went up and dressed my dolls?”

Isaiah turned to stare at her.

“Well,” he stammered, “I—­I cal’late maybe I could if I tried hard.  If you don’t beat anything ever I see!  What are you doin’ with that pitcher?”

The girl was holding the wash pitcher under the pump.

“I’m fillin’ it,” she answered.  “Then you won’t have to have it on your mind any more.  I’ll hurry back just as fast as I can.”

She hastened out, bearing the brimming pitcher with both hands.  Isaiah gazed after her, muttering a word or two, and then set about clearing the breakfast table.

She was down again shortly, the two favorites, Rose and Rosette, in her arms.  She placed them carefully in the kitchen chair and bade them be nice girls and watch mother do the dishes.

“I left the others in the bedroom,” she explained.  “Minnehaha ain’t very well this mornin’.  I guess the excitement was too much for her.  She is a very nervous child.”

Isaiah’s evident amusement caused her to make one of her odd changes from childish make-believe to grown-up practicability.

“Of course,” she added, with gravity, “I know she ain’t really nervous.  She’s just full of sawdust, same as all dolls are, and she couldn’t have any nerves.  But I like to play she’s nervous and delicate.  It’s real handy to say that when I don’t want to take her with me.  I’m a nervous, excitable child myself; Mrs. Hobbs says so.  That’s why I’ve hardly ever been anywhere before, I guess.”

She insisted upon wiping the dishes while Isaiah washed them.  Also, she reminded him that the tablecloth which had been so severely criticized the previous evening had not as yet been changed.  The steward was inclined to treat the matter lightly.

“Never mind if ’tain’t,” he said.  “It’s good enough for a spell longer.  Let it stay.  Besides,” he added, “the washin’ ain’t been done this week and there ain’t another clean one aboard.”

Mary-’Gusta smiled cheerfully.

“Oh, yes, there is,” she said.  “There’s a real nice one in the bottom drawer of the closet.  I’ve been huntin’ and I found it.  Come and see.”

She led him into the dining-room and showed him the cloth she had found.