He went on picking at the soft ditches between the ridges of dirty brown without answering for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said presently, in the slow manner of a man who weighs his words; ‘very glad indeed. It’s increased my interest in life. It’s made me happier, and healthier, and wealthier, and all the rest of it—and wiser too.’ He bent, frowning, over the ditches. ‘It was all your own fault, you know, that we didn’t get you sooner. Oh, years ago—ever so many.’ ‘But I was in the backwoods, Nixie.’ ‘That made no difference,’ she answered promptly. ‘If you had written to us, as mother often asked, we should have noticed at once what you were.’ ‘How could that possibly be?’ he objected, still without looking up. ‘Of course!’ was the overwhelming reply. ‘Oh, come now,’ he said, staring at her solemnly over the table; ‘I admit your penetration is pretty keen, but I doubt _that_.’ She returned his gaze with an expression of grave, almost contemptuous surprise, tossing her hair back impatiently with a jerk from her face. She had finally established the kittens, Zezette and Sambo, in a sleepy heap just where she wanted them on the top of the squirrel’s cage. ‘But, Uncle,’ she exclaimed, ‘between yesserdayantomorrow you can meet people even after they’ve gone altogether. So America wouldn’t have been difficult. How can you think such things?’ Not knowing exactly how it was he could think such things, Paul made no immediate reply. ‘Anyhow,’ she resumed, ‘it didn’t take long once you were here. We saw in a second in the drawinroom what you were—the day you arrived.’ ‘But I acted so well! I’m sure now I behaved—’ ‘You behaved just like Jonah,’ she interrupted him with swift decision, ‘—only bigger!’ Paul laughed to himself. His inquisitor shot across the room to establish Pouf, another kitten, on the piano top. She moved lightly, with a dancing motion that flung her hair behind her through the air, again producing the effect of a sunlight gleam. Paul continued to destroy the table with his blunt penknife, chuckling inwardly at the figure he must have cut that summer afternoon in the ‘drawinroom’ before these mercilessly observant eyes. ‘You stood about shyly just like him and Toby—in lumps,’ she went on presently, ‘saying things in a sudden, jerky way—’ ‘In lumps!’ cried Paul. ‘That’s a nice way to talk to your Uncle!’ Nixie burst out laughing. ‘Oh, I don’t mean that quite,’ she explained; ‘but you stood about as if you found it hard to balance, and were afraid to move off the mat. Just as Jonah does at a party when he’s shy. I copied you _exactly_ when I got upstairs.’ ‘Did I indeed? Did you indeed, I mean?’ said he, wondering whether he ought to feel offended or pleased at the picture.