" he
said.

"What IS the matter with him?" Mr. Baxter demanded. "Half the time
lately he seems to be hibernating, and only responds by a slight
twitching when poked with a stick. The other half of the time he either
behaves like I-don't-know-what or talks about children growing whiskers
in Iowa! Hasn't that girl left town yet?"

William was not so deep in trance that this failed to stir him. He left
the table.

Mrs. Baxter looked distressed, though, as the meal was about concluded,
and William had partaken of his share in spite of his dreaminess, she
had no anxieties connected with his sustenance. As for Mr. Baxter, he
felt a little remorse, undoubtedly, but he was also puzzled. So plain
a man was he that he had no perception of the callous brutality of
the words "THAT GIRL" when applied to some girls. He referred to his
mystification a little later, as he sat with his evening paper in the
library.

"I don't know what I said to that tetchy boy to hurt him," he began in
an apologetic tone. "I don't see that there was anything too rough for
him to stand in a little sarcasm. He needn't be so sensitive on the
subject of whiskers, it seems to me."

Mrs. Baxter smiled faintly and shook her head.

It was Jane who responded. She was seated upon the floor, disporting
herself mildly with her paint-box. "Papa, I know what's the matter with
Willie," she said.

"Do you?" Mr. Baxter returned. "Well, if you make it pretty short,
you've got just about long enough to tell us before your bedtime."

"I think he's married," said Jane.

"What!" And her parents united their hilarity.

"I do think he's married," Jane insisted, unmoved. "I think he's married
with that Miss Pratt."

"Well," said her father, "he does seem upset, and it may be that her
visit and the idea of whiskers, coming so close together, is more than
mere coincidence, but I hardly think Willie is married, Jane!"

"Well, then," she returned, thoughtfully, "he's almost married. I know
that much, anyway."

"What makes you think so?"

"Well, because! I KIND of thought he must be married, or anyways
somep'm, when he talked to Mr. Genesis this mornin'. He said he knew how
some people got married in Pennsylvania an' India, an' he said they were
only seven or eight years old. He said so, an' I heard him; an' he said
there were eleven people married that were only seventeen, an' this boy
in Iowa got a full beard an' got married, too. An' he said Mr. Genesis
was on