"I can s'pose things right off!" said the child. "But p'raps it's different when you are old. Well! And s'pose she had a mother, and _she_ was a beautiful lady, and she had a velvet dress, purple, like a piece in Aunt Susan's quilt. It's as soft as a baby, or a new kitten. And s'pose the little girl came out into the gardin, and said, 'Mittie May, come and play with me!' and s'pose I went, and s'pose she took me into the house, and into a room that was all pink, with silver chairs and sofys, and pink curtains, and a pink pianner,--" "Belay there, young un!" said Calvin. "You're off soundin's. You don't want the pianner should be pink. Why, 'twould be a sight!" "_I_ think 'twould be lovely!" cried the child. "All smooth, like the pond looks when the sun is goin' down." Calvin shook his head gravely. "I don't go with that!" he said, "not a mite. _I_ say, s'pose the pianner was white, with pink roses painted on it. I see one like that once, to Savannah, Georgia, and it was handsome, I tell ye. Make it white with pink roses, little un!" "All right!" said the child. "And anyhow, s'pose the lady played on it, and the little girl--" she turned suddenly shy, and hung her head. "Will you laugh if I say her name?" she asked wistfully. "Laugh!" said Calvin. "Do I look like laughin', young un? nor yet I don't feel like it. What is her name?" "S'pose it's Clementina Loverina Beauty! I made up the middle one myself. S'pose she asked me to dance, and we danced, and the floor was pink marble, and we had gold slippers on, and my hair grew down to my feet too, and--and--and then s'pose we was hungry, and Clementina Loverina Beauty waved her hand, and a table come up through the floor with roast chicken on it, and cramb'ry sauce, and grapes, and icecream and cake, and--and we eat all we could hold, and then we went to sleep in a gold bed with silk sheets. There! now it's your turn." "My turn?" said Calvin vaguely. "Yes! your turn to s'pose. What do you s'pose, about this place?" "Oh! this place. Well, now you're talkin'. Only I don't know as I can play this game as pretty as you do, Mittie May. I don't believe I can git you up any white marble buildin's, nor gold floors, nor that kind of thing. 'Tain't my line, you see." "Why not?" asked the child. "Because you are a brown man can't you?" Calvin nodded. "I expect that's about the size of it," he said gravely. "I'm a brown man. Yes, little un, you surely hit it off that time. And bein' a brown man, it stands to reason that I can't s'pose nothin' risin' out of that hole but a brown house. S'pose it's there now, what? a long brown house, facin' south, see? This is the way it lays. Over this main sullar is the kitchen--big kitchen it is, with lots of winders, and all of 'em sunny, some ways of it; I dono just how they can be, but so they seem. Flowers in 'em, too; sweet--I tell ye; and then the settin'-room openin' out of it."