I thought, of course, he was talking about Waterloo, and was ready to speak up and say, "I thank you, Mr. St. John, my little cousin is not to be called a '_thing_,'" but Jean spoke first. "What would you want to kiss _this_ for?" she asked him. "'Tain't any harm to kiss in the _mouth_ after you're engaged, is it?" We might have been standing there asking him such questions as that till daylight this morning for all the answers we got out of him, but while he sat looking at us and we were trying to squirm Waterloo's little fat legs out of the overalls and him kicking and crying, Miss Merle walked out on the porch. She saw Mr. St. John first, as you would naturally expect an engaged girl to do, and started toward him, but just then she saw us and stopped. "Why, what on earth are you children doing with my rat down here?" she asked, not looking a bit ashamed. We told her what we had been doing with it and she just laughed and said well, it was too hot to wear the thing on such a day anyway, although she had looked for it high and low. All the time we were talking Mr. St. John looked at her in the most amazed way, like he expected to see her appear looking like a Mexican dog, but was greatly surprised to see her with such a nice lot of home-made hair. If he had had any sense he would admire her all the more for not telling a story about that rat; for I've seen a thousand young ladies in my life that wouldn't have owned up to it for a hundred dollars, but would have made their little niece out a story and then boxed her ears in private. I hope when I get grown I won't be a _liarable_ young lady, although it does seem like they're twice as quick to get married as an honest one. He didn't act with good sense, though, for they soon got to talking and we could hear what they said (although we were out of sight) for they were high-toned remarks. He said he _hated_ shams, and she said well, that wasn't any sham for every blowsy-headed girl wears them nowadays and everybody knows it, even the poets and novel-writers that always make their heroines so fuzzy-headed. Then she called him a prig and he said something back at her and she gave him back the ring, which was a brave thing to do, it being a grand diamond one with Mizpath marked in it. Of course the next thing that happens after an engagement is broken is for it to get mended again. All day we have hung around Miss Merle to see just when she gets the ring back again, but up to a late hour to-night, as the newspapers say about the election returns, there was nothing doing. Oh, it does seem a pity that they would let the news go down to their children or be put on their tombstones that their lives were blighted on account of a rat!