“Oh, I beg pardon! an ‘over-skirt,’ is it? So she’s a fashionable doll. What might be her name?” “Guess.” “Keturah?” “No.” “Jerusha?” “No.” “Mary Ann, Sacharissa, Sophia, Clarissa, Joan, Melissa, Eloise, Elizabeth, Jane—” “No-o-o-o-o!” “Victoria, Eugenia, Augusta, Paulina, Virginia, Aurelia, Geraldine, Mollie—” “Yes! Mollie! that’s what it is; but none of your other old—elephants. There, you’re laughing! You knowed what it was all the time; you was only pertendin’. You’ve seen my dolly before.” “Where’s Katy?” “She stayed down-stairs to pop some corn for me and you.” “Shall we go down and see her do it?” “Yes.” “Very well.” And the Lieutenant, rising, manages to shift little dot up to his shoulder. “There, now, you’re a feather on top of a barn-door.” “You’re _not_ a barn-door!” “What am I, then?” “You’re my brave captain boy.” (That was in a whisper.) “Shall I tell you what _you_ are? You’re my little angel.” And, holding her carefully, he goes down the stairs, feeling his way, now and then, with the remnant of an arm in his dangling right sleeve. “I’m almost through,” cries Kate, from the kitchen, her face all aglow with the heat. And Edith, from her lofty perch, watches the few yellow kernels that are nearly lost sight of in the bottom of the wire corn-popper, after a shake or two over the hot coals, suddenly—“Snap, snap, snap!” and look! it is full to the brim with something white and savory, which, seasoned with salt and the least bit of butter, she deals out (with great fairness and impartiality) to herself and her “captain boy,” after they have gone up-stairs again. By and by a thought strikes her. “Katy, my doll hasn’t got any apron.” “Why, so she hasn’t. We’ll have to make her one, won’t we?” And a box of ribbons and laces and pieces of silk is produced from somewhere, and the two sit down on the floor near the Lieutenant’s chair, talking all the time and planning out this wonderful apron. “Now which of all these colors does Edie like best?” asks Kate. “Well, I think the red’s the nicest.” So an apron (with pockets, observe!) is soon manufactured out of a bit of a broad scarlet sash, and braided, too, with white silk braid; and straightway on it goes, in feverish haste (one is anxious to study the effect, you know), over the stylish (but serene) Mademoiselle’s black satin gown. (The effect isn’t bad.) After due admiration from Edith, some other diversion is in order, and a book of engravings is brought for inspection. As the leaves are turned for her she glances for an instant at one picture after another, giving the word to proceed; but they finally come to something over which she pores a long while—so long that Kate is passing to the next without waiting for the “Go on” from little Miss, when the latter immediately takes the book into her own hands, returns to this picture, and continues to gaze at it. “What does it mean?” at length she asks.