hen"--turning to Maude
Bryne-Stivers, to whom she was telling the touching incident, with a
resumption of her first manner, and her most heartrending tone--"and
then I looked first at my cwadle and then at my father, and I cwied--and
cwied--and cwied--and--"

One is limited at four and is apt to strive for emphasis by the simple
method of repetition. Frank always "cwied and cwied" till some
interruption came to the rescue and furnished a climax.

"You dear little lump of sugar!" cried Miss Bryne-Stivers at the proper
moment, lifting the chubby mourner off her feet and out of her pose at
the same time.

And Frank, seated on the lady's lap, was content with her effect.

It was a small matter, anyway, with Frank Madigan--the loss of a pose or
two; she had so many. A parody of parodies was the smallest Madigan, and
her jokes were the shadows of shades of jokes handed down ready-made to
her. Yet she was convinced that they were good; otherwise the Madigans
would not have laughed at them long before she adopted them.

She herself was a victim--as was the gentleman after whom she was
named--of a surplusage of femininity about the house. All female
children are mothers before they are girls, the earliest sex-tendency
having a scientific precedence over others; and the Madigans "played
with" their smallest sister bodily, as with a doll whose mechanism
presented more possibilities than that of any mechanical toy they had
seen--in some other child's possession. Later they were charmed--if but
for a while--by the field her mentality provided for experimental work.
There were times when Frances Madigan had a mother for every day in the
week; there were days when she had no mother at all; and there were
occasions when she was adopted as a whole, and for a stated time, by
some Madigan with a theory, which was tried upon her with all the
remorselessness of a faddist before she was given over as completely to
its successor.

Thus Sissy had taken possession of her and made of her, in the short
time her enthusiasm lasted, a visible replica of that which Sissy tried
to delude herself into thinking was her own character. In those days she
cut poor Frank's curls off and plastered the child's hair down in a
strong-minded fashion. She insisted upon her disciple's pronouncing
clearly and distinctly. She inaugurated a regime of practical common
sense, small rewards and severe punishments, and taught Frank how to
count. But not to spell; f