“_She_ doesn’t want to see that!” “Yes, I do,” Patricia assured them with an innocent courtesy that made Clyde giggle again. The boys ran off to the woodshed to get it. It was all made of wound-about string and little bits of paper and a soft kind of woolly down. Patricia examined it with her large grave eyes. She reached out one finger toward it delicately, and drew the finger back. She looked up at the boys. “What is it?” she breathed. “A mouse nest,” Marvin said nonchalantly. He held it carefully in his brown sturdy hands, partly to keep it together, but more because he liked to have Patricia’s soft little fingers come near his. They were as smooth as silk, and rosy at the tips as the pointed petals of the dog-tooth violets he had found near the little creek in the woods, when he was out there one day last April all alone. A happy shiver went over him at the thought of their touching him, silvery and cool. “Do the mouses--_mices_--live in it?” “Sure! They did before we took it away.” “Oh, but can’t they live in it any more? What will the mices do?” “Gee! What can they do?” Marvin swaggered. Clyde giggled. Her pink mouth opened into a distressed O. She looked from one to the other for help, and the violet in her eyes deepened. “But they won’t have anywhere to live! You must put it back.” She was very serious. “Shoot! Why, they’ve run off somewheres else by this time!” What did it matter about mice anyhow? Gee, they were something to get rid of! Why did she suppose Pop kept all those cats and fed ’em, if it wasn’t to get rid of the mice? But she looked so distressed that Leone, with an angry glance at the boys, assured her hastily leaning over and hugging her: “No, they haven’t, Patricia! Boys just like to say things like that.” “Aw, gee----!” “But what will the mices _do_?” “The boys’ll put the nest back, and then the mice’ll come there,” Leone warmly promised her. She didn’t care if it wasn’t true. The boys had never heard anything so funny in their lives. Gee whiz! They despised her for such ignorance, and could hardly keep from laughing, and yet they felt uneasily ashamed of themselves for they didn’t quite know what. They had just wanted to bring her the mouse nest to make her interested and then to show her, too, that they weren’t afraid of things most people didn’t want to touch. But they seemed to be out of favour. They hung around while the girls talked a lot of silly talk, and laid all the dolls out in the grass in front of them. “I’ll bet you’ve got awful pretty clothes for your dolls, haven’t you, Patricia?” Patricia didn’t like to say, or to talk about her dolls because she didn’t really think that these dolls’ dresses were one bit pretty. Leone went on questioning her, with naïve admiration, and Vila listened with her eyes glistening. “I’ll bet you’ve been into lots of big stores, Patricia. Did this dress you’ve got on come from a big store?”