n' he's goin' to take a kitten home for a pet, an' he says the
reason he doesn't wash his face is because he hasn't any water."

"Is it possible," enquired the old lady in the manner of her pecking
parrot, "that he does not wash his face?"

My pride could bear it no longer, and opening my mouth I spoke in a
loud, high voice.

"If you please, ma'am, I wash my face every day," I said, "and all over
every Saturday night."

She was still feeding the parrot with a bit of cake, and as I spoke, she
turned toward me and waved one of her wiry little hands, which reminded
me of a bird's claw, under its ruffle of yellowed lace.

"Bring him here, Sally, and let me see him," she directed, as if I had
been some newly entrapped savage beast.

Catching me by the arm, Sally obediently led me to the armchair, where I
stood awkward and trembling, with my hands clutching the flaps of my
breeches' pockets, and my eyes on the ground.

For a long pause the old lady surveyed me critically with her merciless
eyes. Then, "Give him a piece of cake, Sally," she remarked, when the
examination was over.

Sally's mother had come up softly behind me while I writhed under the
piercing gaze, and bending over she encircled my shoulders with her
protecting arms.

"He's a dear little fellow, with such pretty blue eyes," she said.

As she spoke I looked up for the first time, and my glance met my
reflection in a long, gold-framed mirror hanging between the windows.
The "pretty blue eyes" I saw, but I saw also the straw-coloured hair,
the broad nose sprinkled with freckles, and the sturdy legs disguised by
the shapeless breeches, which my mother had cut out of a discarded
dolman she had once worn to funerals. It was a figure which might have
raised a laugh in the ill-disposed, but the women before me carried kind
hearts in their bosoms, and even grandmama's chilling scrutiny ended in
nothing worse than a present of cake.

"May I play with him just a little while, grandmama?" begged Sally, and
when the old lady nodded permission, we joined hands and went through
the open window out upon the sunny porch.

On that spring morning the colours of the garden were all clear white
and purple, for at the foot of the curving stairway, and on the upper
terrace, bunches of lilacs bloomed high above the small spring flowers
that bordered the walk. Beneath the fluted columns a single great
snowball bush appeared to float like a cloud in the warm wind. As we