es are so cunning, when they don't cry."

Miss Recompense smiled at that.

There was a comfortable low chair for Doris, and Uncle Win found her
seated there, the ruddy firelight throwing up her face like a painting.
Miss Recompense went out to see about the supper. There was a
good-natured black woman in the kitchen to do the cooking, and Cato, who
did the outside work and waited on Dinah and Miss Recompense--a tall,
sedate, rather pompous colored man.

Some indefinable charm about the house appealed to Doris. The table was
arranged in such an attractive manner. Nothing could be more delightful
than Aunt Elizabeth's cooking, but she stopped short at an invisible
something. The china was saved for company, though there was one pretty
cup they always gave to Aunt Priscilla. The everyday dishes were
earthen, such as ordinary people used, and being of rather poor glaze
they soon checked. Doris knew these pretty plates and the tall cream jug
and sugar dish had not been brought out especially for her, though she
had supposed they were when they all came over to a company tea.

She started so when Uncle Winthrop addressed her in French, and glanced
at him in amaze; then turned to a pink glow and laughed as she collected
her scattered wits to answer.

What a soft, exquisite accent the child had! Miss Recompense paused in
her pouring tea to listen.

Uncle Win smiled and continued. They were around the pretty tea table in
a sort of triangle. Uncle Win passed the thin, dainty slices of bread.
Miss Recompense, when she was done with the tea, passed the cold
chicken. Then there were cheese and two kinds of preserves, plain cake
and fruit cake.

Children rarely drank tea, so Doris had some milk in a glass which was
cut with just a sparkle here and there that the light caught and made
brilliant.

"How you _can_ understand any such talk as that beats me," said Miss
Recompense in a sort of helpless fashion as she glanced from one to the
other.

"And if we were abroad talking English the forsigners would say the same
thing," replied Mr. Adams.

"But there is some sense in English."

He laughed a little. "And if we lived in China we would think there was
a good deal of sense in Chinese, which is said to be one of the queerest
languages in the world."

We did not know very much about China in those days, and our knowledge
was chiefly gleaned from rather rude maps and some old histories, and
the wonderful tales of sea captai