en to know that in a former existence he was never
even asked to write, though he always hoped he might be."

"I'm sorry if you like him, Uncle Maje, but I'm positive that Fatty
Budlow is not a boy I could _ever_ feel deeply for. I don't believe our
acquaintance will even ripen into friendship," and she looked with
profound eyes into the wondrous, opening future.

"Of course it won't," I said. "I might have known that. He will continue
through the ages to be an impossible boy. Miss Lansdale feels the same
way about him. Poor Fatty or Horsehead or whatever they call him stands
off and glares at her, and can't say his lesson when he catches her
eye--only he seldom does catch it, because she's so busy with other boys
of more spirit who crowd about her and snatch hair ribbons and sing 'My
lady sleeps' until no one else can."

"Do you know Fatty Budlow?" asked my surprised woman child of Miss
Lansdale. But that young woman only reached out one foot to point its
toe idly at a creeping green worm and turn its vagrant course. The toe
was by no means common-sense, and the heel was simply idiotic.

"Of course she knows him," I said; "she knows he would give his right
hand for her, which is a good deal under the circumstances, and she very
properly despises him for it. She'd take her picture away from him if
she could."

"She wouldn't," said Miss Lansdale, with a gesture of her foot that
disconcerted me.

"Miss Kate," I said, "I have lived my life in terror of seeing one of
those squashy green worms meet a fearful disaster in my presence. Would
you mind--"

With a fillip of the bronzed toe she sent the amazed worm into a country
that must have been utterly strange to it,

"She'd take it back quickly enough if she knew what he makes of it," I
said, returning to the picture; "if she knew that he had kept it ever
since he learned that agriculture, mining, and ship-building are
principal industries--only at first it had two long yellow braids, and
tassels dangling from its boot tops."

"My mother had beautiful long golden hair," said the woman child, adding
simply, "papa says mine is just like it."

Miss Lansdale regarded me narrowly.

"You get me all mixed up," she said.

"I like to. You're heady then--like your mother's punch when it's 'all
mixed up.'"

"I must put in more ice," remarked Miss Lansdale, calmly.

"Fatty Budlow is so serious," said the woman child, suspecting that the
talk had drifted away from her.