in her little white and green
perambulator, trying to distract her mind from suffrage while he talks
to her gently and persuasively upon the subject. Suffrage is the only
subject on her mind, he explains, so all he can do is to try to cuckoo
gently under it day by day. It's a very complicated process but he's
making headway."

"I'm glad of that," Eleanor said faintly. "How--how is Aunt Gertrude?
I don't see her very often, either."

"Gertrude's all right." It was Jimmie's turn to look self-conscious.
"She never has time for me any more; I'm not high-brow enough for her.
She's getting on like a streak, you know, exhibiting everywhere."

"I know she is. She gave me a cast of her faun's head. I think it is
lovely. Aunt Margaret looks well."

"She is, I guess, but don't let's waste all our valuable time talking
about the family. Let's talk about us--you and me. You ask me how I'm
feeling and then I'll tell you. Then I'll ask you how you're feeling
and you'll tell me. Then I'll tell you how I imagine you must be
feeling from the way you're looking,--and that will give me a chance
to expatiate on the delectability of your appearance. I'll work up
delicately to the point where you will begin to compare me favorably
with all the other nice young men you know,--and then we'll be off."

"Shall we?" Eleanor asked, beginning to sparkle a little.

"We shall indeed," he assured her solemnly. "You begin. No, on second
thoughts, I'll begin. I'll begin at the place where I start telling
you how excessively well you're looking. I don't know, considering its
source, whether it would interest you or not, but you have the biggest
blue eyes that I've, ever seen in all my life,--and I'm rather a judge
of them."

"All the better to eat you with, my dear," Eleanor chanted.

"Quite correct." He shot her a queer glance from under his eyebrows.
"I don't feel very safe when I look into them, my child. It would be a
funny joke on me if they did prove fatal to me, wouldn't
it?--well,--but away with such nonsense. I mustn't blither to the very
babe whose cradle I am rocking, must I?"

"I'm not a babe, Uncle Jimmie. I feel very old sometimes. Older than
any of you."

"Oh! you are, you are. You're a regular sphinx sometimes. Peter says
that you even disconcert him at times, when you take to remembering
things out of your previous experience."

"'When he was a King in Babylon and I was a Christian Slave?'" she
quoted quickly.

"Exactly.