Prudence Jane made the little knix that she had learned at German school. It was always the finishing touch to Prudence Jane. The Reverend Mr. Sanders looked down upon it with a most friendly smile. 'Is your aunt at home?' he asked, placing his hat on the table and following Prudence Jane into the parlor. 'Yes,' she said with simple candor. A fib of that sort was quite beneath Prudence Jane. Then she sat down on a velvet sofa, spread out her little blue skirt, folded her hands in her lap and crossed her ankle-ties. She had never in her life looked so much like little Bertie. The Reverend Mr. Sanders, regarding her from an opposite chair, waited for her to open her lips and say, 'Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.' Instead, this is what she said:-- 'Is Eliza Anna Bomination your grandmother?' 'I beg pardon,' said the Reverend Mr. Sanders. 'Is she dead and gone to heaven, and that's why you say "unto the Lord"?' continued Prudence Jane. 'I wonder, Imogen,' he said, 'if you would mind beginning over again.' 'I say, is Eliza Anna Bomination your grandmother?' repeated Prudence Jane. 'Aunt Annie says she's written down in the middle of your Bible where all people's relations are, and she sounded like a grandmother; they always have such horrid names.' The minister looked across at the velvet sofa with eyes that entirely contradicted the gravity of his face. 'No,' he said, 'I'm sorry, but she isn't. I wish she were. I never heard of such a jolly grandmother.' 'Is she an aunt?' pursued his small interlocutor. 'I'm afraid that she's not even related by marriage,' he replied. 'Isn't she written down in the middle of your Bible at all?' said Prudence Jane. The minister shook his head. 'No,' he said, 'I'm afraid not.' 'Then Aunt Annie told a whopper,' announced Prudence Jane with satisfaction. 'We should not malign the absent,' said the Reverend Mr. Sanders. 'And that being the case, suppose you go up at this point, Imogen, and tell your Aunt Annie that I am here.' Prudence Jane wondered what 'maligning the absent' was. She distrusted gentlemen who made cryptic remarks of this sort. It was a way her brother Horace had. She saw that the moment had now arrived to test Aunt Annie's theory about ministers and fibs! 'She can't come down,' she replied. 'Can't come down?' repeated the minister. 'No,' said Prudence Jane, looking at him out of the depths of her forget-me-not eyes, 'she's washed her hair.' 'Oh,' said the Reverend Mr. Sanders, in the tone of one who finds the conversation getting definitely beyond him. At this moment an apparition with a round face and a pair of corduroy shoulders suddenly darkened the open window. 'A _lie_ is an a-_bom_-i-_na_-tion _un_-to the _Lord_,' it sang; and, catching sight of the clerical back, vanished hastily. 'Interesting chorus,' observed the Reverend Mr. Sanders. Prudence Jane paid no heed to this interruption.