room, the comfortable person
following. "She said"--plunging up to her chair in great
excitement--"that I could be like you."

"I said you could try to be," corrected Battles, smoothing down her
apron.

"And she knows I can't ever be, in all this world," declared Dick,
shaking his short curls in decision, and glancing back to see the
effect, "for you're a woman, and I'm always going to be a man. Why, see
how big I am now!" He squared off, and strutted up and down the little
boudoir.

"And you'd be bigger if you'd let me fix your blouse and button it up,"
declared Battles, laughing, and bearing down on him to fasten the band
and tuck in the vest. "And if you were more like your mother in
disposition--that's what I mean--'twould be a sight comfortabler for you
and every one else. Now, says I, your hair's got to be brushed." And she
led him back into the nursery, laughing all the way.

"What makes you shake so when you laugh, Battles?" asked Dick suddenly,
and ignoring all references to his disposition.

"Can't help it," said Battles, beginning work on the curls; "that's
because there's so much of me, I suppose," and she laughed more than
ever.

"There's so very much of you, Battles," observed Dick with a critical
look all over her rotund figure. "What makes it?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Battles. "Stand still, Dicky, and I'll be
through all the sooner. Some folks is big and round, and some folks is
little and scrawny."

"What's scrawny?" asked Dick, who always got as many alleviations by
conversation as possible out of the detested hair-brushing.

"Why, thin and lean."

"Oh, well, go on, Battles."

"And I'm one of the big and round ones," said Battles, seeing no
occasion in that statement to abate her cheerfulness. So she laughed
again.

"I like you big and round, Battles," cried little Dick affectionately,
and whirling about so suddenly as to endanger his eye with the comb
doing good execution. And he essayed to put his arms around her waist,
which he was always hoping to be able to accomplish.

"That's good," said Battles, laughing, well pleased. "But you mustn't
jump around so. There now, in a minute you shall be off." And she took
up the brush.

"I must," declared Dick, remembering his sight of Phronsie running
across the lawn; "do hurry, Battles," he pleaded, which so won her heart
that she abridged part of the brushing, and let him scamper off.

Phronsie was kneeling down in front of Sinbad's k