her into the turf beside the step.

"Catie."

"Catie what?"

"Catie Harrison."

"Huuh!"

She scented criticism in his reply.

"It's better than yours is," she retorted.

"It is not, too," he made counter retort. "Besides, you don't know my
name."

Slowly the little damsel nodded, once, twice.

"Yes, I do. The man told me."

"What man?"

"The man that sells hens' eggs to my mother. I asked him, and he told
me."

Scott eyed her with fierce hostility. Was there no limit to this small
girl's all-penetrating curiosity?

"What is it, then?" he asked defiantly.

"It's Walter Scott Brenton," she assured him. And then she added, by
way of turning her triumph into a crushing rout, "I think it's the
homeliest name I ever heard."

And once again Scott Brenton gritted his teeth upon the fact that he
was downed.

Later, he took his turn for extracting information concerning his
uninvited guest. He extracted it from herself, however, and with
refreshing directness. At the advanced age of seven years, one sees no
especial use in conventional beatings about the bush. One goes straight
to the point, or else one keeps still entirely; and, at that phase of
his existence, keeping still was not Scott Brenton's forte. Indeed, he
was later than are the most of us in learning the lesson that the
keenest social weapon lies in reticence.

The starchy little damsel, it appeared, was the daughter of a petty
farmer, lately come into the village. She was an only child; her home
was the third house up the street, and her mother, busy about her
household tasks and already a good deal under the thumb of her small
daughter, considered her whole maternal duty done when the child was
washed and curled and clothed in starch, and then turned out to play.
Catie was able to look out for herself, Catie's mother explained
contentedly to her new neighbours, and she knew enough to come home,
when she was hungry. Best let her go her ways, then. She would learn to
be a little woman, all the sooner; and, in the meantime, it was a great
deal easier to do the housework without having a child under foot about
the kitchen.

And go her ways the little damsel did, with only her guardian angel to
see to it that her way was not the wrong one. By the time her father's
first week's rent was due, Catie had made acquaintance with every
inhabitant of the village, from the Methodist minister down to the
blacksmith's bob-tailed cat. Not only that; but Cat