She was always asking questions, troublesome ones sometimes, which betrayed what her aunt never intended to have divulged. Mrs. Hart had given her sundry charges to hold her tongue, but she might as well have tried to stem Niagara. Connie liked to talk, and generally expressed her opinion freely. She had told the deacon that she didn’t like the looks of his working clothes, and didn’t quite like the smell of the barn, with its cows and pigs and chickens and cats. Then it suddenly occurred to her that it was Christmas morning, and she said, “Ar’n’t I going to have a present?” “Why, that’s a fact. You or’to have,” the deacon replied, and Connie continued: “I had a lot at home, and I’m going to buy one for Auntie any way,—one of your antiques, if they are not too high. Where are they?” The deacon looked perplexed and asked what she meant. “Why,” she replied, “Auntie said there were piles of quaint, old-fashioned things here, and the dictionary says _quaint_ means antique, and Auntie likes ’em, the older and more worn they are the better. Where are they, and will two dollars get a good one?” She was looking earnestly at the deacon, who stroked her fair hair and replied: “I guess I’m the biggest antique on the premises, and I’m not for sale. The house and everything in it is old-fashioned,—antique; that’s what your auntie meant, not that we have a lot of truck to sell; but I’m sorry we have no present for you.” “Oh, never mind,” Connie replied. “I have heaps at home,—eight dolls and a big doll house; but, oh, my auntie said I was not to tell you that, because—” She put her hand over her mouth a moment, then, as if the effort were too great, she burst out, “what is a _hunks_, and are you one?” “What do you mean?” the deacon asked again, and Connie replied: “Auntie says you are, and wouldn’t like it if you knew she gave twenty-five dollars for my doll house.” The deacon was not at all sensitive and at once understood the situation. “Connie,” he said, with a laugh, “a hunks, in this case, means a man who has the charge of a little girl’s money and does not want her to spend it so fast that by-and-by it will all be gone.” “Oh, yes, I see. I’m glad it isn’t anything bad, because I like you,” Connie said, holding his hand and hippity-hopping back to the house, where her aunt, who had come down and was looking for her, met her in some dismay. “Connie,” she exclaimed, “where have you been, and what a fright you are. Your dress not half buttoned, nor your boots either. There’s hay in your hair, and a feather, too, and you smell of the barn. Come upstairs at once and make yourself tidy.” There were traces of tears on Connie’s face when she came down to breakfast after having been scolded and made tidy, but she kept up bravely, for Kenneth told her he was to take her for a walk when breakfast was over, and she was soon ready, in her blue cloak and hood, which the boy thought the prettiest garments he had ever seen.