Aunt Molly was there; and Uncle Bob Hendricks was there, the special guest of Grandma Barclay.

Uncle Adrian was away on a trip somewhere; but Uncle Colonel and Grandma Culpepper and all the others were there listening to father's new German music-box, and no one should blame a little girl, sitting shyly on the stone steps, trying to make something out of the absurd world around her, if she piped out when the talk stopped:-- "Mother, why does Aunt Molly cut off her lilac buds before they bloom ?" And when her mother assured her that Aunt Molly did nothing of the kind, and when Uncle Bob Hendricks looked up and saw Aunt Molly go pale under her powder, and when Aunt Molly said, "Why, Jane--the child must have dreamed that," no one in this wide world must blame a little girl for opening her eyes as wide as she could, and lifting her little voice as strongly as she could, and saying: "Why, Aunt Molly, you know I saw you last night--when I stayed with you.

You know I did, 'cause I looked out of the window and spokened to you.

You know I did--don't you remember ?" And no one must blame the mother for shaking her finger at Jeanette, and no one must blame Jeanette for sitting there shaking a protesting head, and screwing up her little face, trying to make the puzzle out.
And when, later in the evening, Daddy Barclay went over to the mill with his work, and Uncle Bob left in the twilight, and Aunt Molly and mother were alone in mother's room, how should a little girl know what the crying was all about, and how should a little girl understand when a small woman, looking in a mirror, and dabbing her face with a powder rag, said to mother, who knows everything in the world, and all about the angels that brought you here: "Oh, Jane, Jane, you don't know--you don't understand.

There are things that I couldn't make you understand--and I mustn't even think of them." Surely it is a curious world for little girls--a passing curious world, when there are things in it that even mothers cannot understand.
So Jeanette turned her face to the wall and went to sleep, leaving Aunt Molly powdering her nose and asking mother, "Does it look all right now--" and adding, "Oh, I'm such a fool." In so illogical a world, the reader must not be allowed to think that Molly Brownwell lamented the folly of mourning for a handsome young gentleman in blue serge with white spats on his shoes and a Byronic collar and a fluffy necktie of the period.