"Then I do not much care _who_ is dead?" I answer, unfeelingly, drawing a long breath; "he is the only person _out_ of this house whose death would afflict me much, and I do not think that there is any one besides _us_ that _you_ are very devoted to, is there?" "Why are you so determined that some one is _dead_?" he asks, smiling again, but this time a little more naturally; "is there nothing vexatious in the world but _death_?" "Yes," say I, laughing, despite myself, as my thoughts revert to my late employment, "there are _puff-balls_!"--then, ashamed of having been flippant, and afraid of having been unsympathetic, I add hastily: "I wish you would tell me what it is! I am sure, _when I hear_, I shall be vexed too; but you see as long as I do not know what it is, I cannot, can I?" "There is no time now," he says, glancing toward father, whose head appears through the dining-room windows. "See! they are going to breakfast!--afterward I will tell you--afterward--and child--" (putting his hands on my shoulders, and essaying to look at me with an altogether cheered and careless face,) "do not you worry your head about it!--eat your breakfast with an easy mind; after all, it is nothing very bad!--it could not be any thing _very_ bad, as long as--." He stops abruptly, and adds hastily, "let us have a look at your mushrooms! well, you _have_ a quantity!" "Yes, have not I?" say I, triumphantly, "more than any of them, except Tou Tou--." Then, not quite satisfied with the impression our late talk has left upon me: "General!" say I, lowering my face and reddening, "I hope you do not think that I am _quite_ a baby because I like childish things--gathering mushrooms--running about with the boys--talking to Jacky. I can understand serious things _too_, I assure you. I think I could enter into your trouble--I think, if you gave me the chance, that you would find that I could!" Then a sort of idiotic false shame overtakes me, and without waiting for his answer I disappear. CHAPTER XVIII.