He dusted off the step, though, and sat down; and I told him that Cousin Eunice was drinking buttermilk in her kimono and wouldn't be in a mood to dress for another hour. Then I told him what a hard time I'd had trying to think up something interesting to write in my diary. He said, looking again toward Cousin Eunice's window, that there was only _one_ thing in the world to write about! But he supposed I was too young to know anything about that. I spoke up promptly and told him a girl never _got_ too young to know about love. "Love!" he said, trying to look surprised. "Who mentioned love?" Just then I heard the flutteration of a silk petticoat on the porch behind the vines, but Rufe was gazing so hard at the blue hills on the far side of town that he didn't hear it. So, without saying anything to him, I leaned over far enough to look under the banisters, and saw the bottom of Bertha's skirt and a skein of blue silk thread lying on the floor. So I knew she was sitting there working on that everlasting chafing-dish apron. Then Satan put an idea into my head. I think it was Satan. "Rufe," I said, talking very loud and quick, so Bertha would just _have_ to hear me, "what's the difference between a kitten and a cat?" Rufe at last got his eyes unfixed from the blue hills and just stared at me foolishly for a second. "Am I the parent of a child that I should have to answer fool questions?" he said. "But the night she came you called Bertha a _kitten_!" I reminded him, and he looked worse surprised. "And since I've heard her called a _cat_! How long does it take a kitten to grow into a cat?" "Oh, I see! Well, I'm better versed in feline ways now than I was that night; so I might state that sometimes you discover that a kitten is a cat! There isn't any difference!" We heard a clattering noise behind the vines just then, which I knew was Bertha dropping her embroidery scissors. Rufe jumped, for he had no idea anybody was hearing our conversation; and I know he wouldn't have said what he did about cats except he _thought_ I was too little to understand such figures of speech. Then he got up to go in and see who it was. And I decided to disappear around the corner of the house. I didn't altogether disappear before I heard her say indeed he _had_ meant to call her a cat; and he said indeed he hadn't, but she hadn't been "square" with him, and they talked and talked until I got uneasy that Cousin Eunice would be coming through the hall and hear them. So I hurried on back to head her off. But Satan, or whoever it was, put me up to a good job in that, for the next time I saw Rufe he was wearing his fraternity pin and a happy smile. And Bertha had red spots on her face, even as late as dinner-time, like consumption that lovely heroines die of.