which his parents might have
spared him, with no loss to themselves or to the world. Not having
shown that consideration for anybody, they might at least have been less
spinelessly indulgent of her. William's bitter conviction was that he
had never seen a child so starved of discipline or so lost to etiquette
as Jane.

For one thing, her passion for bread-and-butter, covered with apple
sauce and powdered sugar, was getting to be a serious matter. Secretly,
William was not yet so changed by love as to be wholly indifferent to
this refection himself, but his consumption of it was private, whereas
Jane had formed the habit of eating it in exposed places--such as the
front yard or the sidewalk. At no hour of the day was it advisable for
a relative to approach the neighborhood in fastidious company, unless
prepared to acknowledge kinship with a spindly young person either
eating bread-and-butter and apple sauce and powdered sugar, or all too
visibly just having eaten bread-and-butter and apple sauce and powdered
sugar. Moreover, there were times when Jane had worse things than apple
sauce to answer for, as William made clear to his mother in an oration
as hot as the July noon sun which looked down upon it.

Mrs. Baxter was pleasantly engaged with a sprinkling-can and some small
flower-beds in the shady back yard, and Jane, having returned from
various sidewalk excursions, stood close by as a spectator, her hands
replenished with the favorite food and her chin rising and falling in
gentle motions, little prophecies of the slight distensions which passed
down her slender throat with slow, rhythmic regularity. Upon this calm
scene came William, plunging round a corner of the house, furious yet
plaintive.

"You've got to do something about that child!" he began. "I CAN not
stand it!"

Jane looked at him dumbly, not ceasing, how ever, to eat; while Mrs.
Baxter thoughtfully continued her sprinkling.

"You've been gone all morning, Willie," she said. "I thought your father
mentioned at breakfast that he expected you to put in at least four
hours a day on your mathematics and--"

"That's neither here nor there," William returned, vehemently. "I just
want to say this: if you don't do something about Jane, I will! Just
look at her! LOOK at her, I ask you! That's just the way she looked half
an hour ago, out on the public sidewalk in front of the house, when
I came by here with Miss PRATT! That was pleasant, wasn't it? To be
wa