ly than the
occasion seemed to warrant.

"Molly may not have been so far wrong after all," he observed to my
mother, "in spite of the array of circumstantial evidence against her."

My mother was unconvinced.

"Previous good behavior should count for much in such a case," she
urged. "And our little Molly is too apt to jump at conclusions. We
cannot be too careful how we accuse others of sins which they may never
have committed."

I understood what they said perfectly. They never talked down to us.
That was one reason we were called "old-fashioned" and "precocious" by
people who had one set of words for their own use, and another for
children. My parents considered, and I think rightly, that the best and
most correct forms of speech should be taught to mere infants, that it
is as easy to train a child to be grammatical as to let it lapse into
all sorts of slovenly inaccuracies that must be unlearned at school, and
in society. So, when they talked of "circumstantial evidence" I had a
fair inkling of what the phrase conveyed. Preciosa was upon trial for
misdemeanor, and I for backbiting.

I ate away industriously to keep from "answering back,"--a cardinal
offence in nursery government. Mary 'Liza had no appetite, but she,
also, remained silent, and there was moisture under her eyelids.

"We will suspend judgment--" began my father, and interrupted himself to
ask--"What _have_ you got there, Ike?"

The butler grinned from ear to ear, and broke into uncontrollable
cachinnations in depositing his burden upon the floor.

"One of the stable-boys foun' it in the lof', suh."

He could say no more, and would not have been heard had he gone on, for
my father roared, my mother fairly shrieked with laughter, and I went
into hysterics, while Mam' Chloe and Gilbert joined in the general
racket from the doorway.

An abject nondescript cringed at Mary 'Liza's feet, whimpering
piteously. The devil's broth concocted by Uncle Ike, according to my
receipt, was warm starch, made blue with indigo. A few red peppers were
boiled in it to dissuade the cats from licking it off before it could
dry. It adhered to every individual hair of Preciosa's body. She looked
like an azure porcupine. I had thought, at first, of using soot as
coloring matter, but the thought of the blue appealed to my sense of the
congruous ridiculous. I was more than content with the result. Why a
blue cat should be more mirth-provoking than a yellow may not be
ex