ectful discretion. She had
seen so much, and heard so little; and she was a very old family
servant.

"What do you call _her_, Mr. Guy?" she asked, in a confidential
whisper, with a jerk of the head toward the mulberry-tree.

"Her?" repeated the Boy, surprised. Then his whole tone softened. It
was so sweet to speak her name to some one. "I call her 'Christobel,'"
he said, gently.

But Martha wanted to know more. Martha was woman enough to desire an
unshared possession of her own. She bent over the fire, stirring it
through the bars.

"Mr. Guy, sir, I suppose you don't--I suppose you do--that is to say,
sir--Do you call _her_ what you've been pleased to call me?"

"Eh, what?" said the Boy, vaguely.

"Oh, I see. 'Christobel, my----' Oh, no, Martha. No, I don't! Not
even when I feel most affectionate." Here the Boy was seized with
sudden convulsions, slapped his knee noiselessly, and rocked on the
kitchen table. He whispered it, in an ecstasy of enjoyment.
"'Christobel, my duck!' Oh, lor! 'Christobel, my duck!' I hope I
shall be able to resist telling her. I should have to own I had called
Martha so. 'Christobel, my----'"

Martha, wondering at the silence, looked round suddenly. But the Boy
had that instant recovered, and was sitting gravely on the corner of
the table.

"Martha, my duck," he said, "to return to the original opening of this
conversation: has Jenkins ever told you what a nice little wisp of hair
you have, behind your left ear?"

"Get along, sir!" retorted Martha, fairly blushing. "You're making
game of me."

"Indeed, I'm not," said the Boy, seriously. "If you made it into a
curl, Martha, and fastened it with an invisible pin, it would be quite
too fascinating. You ask Jenkins. I say, Martha? What's a placket?"

"A placket, sir," said Martha, on her way to fetch something from a
shelf near which hung the kitchen mirror; "a placket, sir, is a thing
which shows when it shouldn't."

"I see," said the Boy. "Then you couldn't exactly go about in one.
Martha, whose goloshes are those, sitting on the mat in the hall?"

Martha snorted. "An old woman's," she said, wrathfully.

The Boy considered this. "And does the umbrella with the waist belong
to the same old woman?"

Martha nodded.

"And the Professor's cap and gown, hanging near by?"

Martha hesitated. "'Tain't always petticoats makes an old woman," she
said, sententiously.

"Martha, you are _pro_-foundly right,"