“Yes’m. I ain’ tellin’,” Genesis chuckled. “I’m a go’n a git me one nem waituh suits befo’ long, myse’f, so’s I kin quit wearin’ ’at ole Henry Gimlet suit what b’longs to Fanny, an’ have me a privut suit o’ my own. They’s a secon’ han’ sto’, ovuh on the avynoo, where they got swaller-tail suits all way f’um sevum dolluhs to nineteen dolluhs an’ ninety-eight cents. I’m a--” Jane started, interrupting him. “_Sh_,” she whispered, laying a finger warningly upon her lips. William had entered the yard at the back gate, and, approaching over the lawn, had arrived at the steps of the porch before Jane perceived him. She gave him an apprehensive look, but he passed into the house absent-mindedly, not even glancing at Clematis, the humble and faithful dog in attendance upon Genesis--and that was remarkable, because the sight of Clematis was nearly always but too obviously painful to William. Clematis was so mingled a dog that he shook one’s faith in any definiteness of design on the part of Nature: it hurt William to see him about the premises, and William showed his feelings, for he feared that people might think Clematis belonged to him or to his family. But to-day he passed without flinching--and Mrs. Baxter was right: William did look pale. “I guess he didn’t hear us,” said Jane, when he had disappeared into the interior. “He acks awful funny!” she added thoughtfully. “First when he was in love with Miss Pratt, he’d be mad about somep’m’ almost every minute he was home. Couldn’t anybody say _any_thing to him but he’d just behave as if it was awful, an’ then if you’d see him out walkin’ with Miss Pratt, well, he’d look like--like--” Jane paused; her eye fell upon Clematis and by a happy inspiration she was able to complete her simile with remarkable accuracy. “He’d look like the way Clematis looks at people! That’s just _exackly_ the way he’d look, Genesis, when he was walkin’ with Miss Pratt; an’ then when he was home he got so quiet he couldn’t answer questions an’ wouldn’t hear what anybody said to him at table or anywhere, an’ papa’d just almost bust. Mamma ’n’ papa’d talk an’ talk about it, an’”--she lowered her voice--“an’ I an’ sometimes he’d sit in there without any light, or he’d hardly ever get mad any more; he’d just sit in his room, an’ sometimes he’d sit in there without any light, or he’d sit out in the yard all by himself all evening maybe, an’ th’ other evening after I was in bed I heard ’em, an’ papa said--well, this is what papa told mamma.” And again lowering her voice, she proffered the quotation from her father in a tone somewhat awestruck. “Papa said, by Gosh! if he ever ’a’ thought a son of his could make such a Word idiot of himself he almost wished we’d both been girls!” * * * * *