es, certainly," returned Mr. Evringham hastily, anxious
to reinstate himself. "I wish you to have a pair of rubbers at once,
Julia--Jewel. You surely don't mean that your mother has allowed you to
wet your feet."

"I--I never noticed, grandpa, but," hopefully, "she lets me wet my
hands, so why not my feet?"

"Bless me, what ignorance! Because the soles of your feet have large
pores through which to catch cold. Hasn't any one ever told you that?"

Jewel smiled. "That would be a queer arrangement for God to make, don't
you think?" she asked softly. "Just as if He expected us to walk on our
hands."

Mrs. Forbes's eyes widened, and an irrepressible "Well!" escaped from
her lips. "Has that young one reverence for anything in heaven above or
earth beneath?" she queried mentally.

Mr. Evringham managed to recover himself sufficiently to say, "You
shouldn't speak so, Jewel."

"But you know how it was about the tree of knowledge, grandpa," replied
the child earnestly. "God told Adam not to eat of it, because then he'd
believe in good _and_ evil, and that always makes such lots and _lots_
of trouble. The Indians don't have to wear rubbers."

"Drink your milk, Jewel," returned Mr. Evringham uncomfortably, not
having the temerity to lift his eyes as high as his housekeeper's
countenance. "No matter about the Indians. You are a civilized little
girl, and you must wear rubbers while you live with me. Mrs. Forbes will
very kindly buy them for you."

"Oh, I have money," returned Jewel brightly. "I have three dollars,"
she added, trying not to say it boastfully. "Fifty cents for every week
father and mother are going to be away."

Mr. Evringham wiped his mustache. "You need not spend any of it for the
rubbers," he returned. "You are buying those to please me."

"I shall love to wear them to please you, grandpa," she returned
affectionately. "I'll put them on every time I can think of it."

"Only when it is wet, of course," he said. "When it is rainy."

"Oh yes," she returned, "when it's rainy."

"Harry looked like my father, and she does, by Jove," mused Mr.
Evringham. "She's like me. Knows what she wants to eat, and cares for a
horse, if she is a strange little being."

"You say you like horses?" he remarked suddenly.

"I just love them," answered Jewel, "and I came real close to them once.
Father took me to the horse show."

"He did, eh?"

"Yes, he told mother he was going to blow me to it." The child laughed.
"F