For a time he worked in silence, covering his slate with figures.
The clock ticked loudly on the mantel, and seemed to be trying to outdo
Gyp's busy pencil.
"Scratch! Scratch!" went the pencil, and "Tick! Tick!" chirped the little clock, and then the boy looked up, his eyes bright with excitement.
"I've done it, Mrs. Aunt Judith!" he cried, "I've done it, and it's right! You said it was better for me to do everything that I could do, by studying and working, instead of being helped."
"It is better, because you will fully understand what you have done, and you will be more likely to remember it.
"But tell me," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder, "why do you call me Mrs. Aunt Judith?"
He looked frankly up into her face as he answered.
"You aren't my Aunt Judith, tho' I wish you were, so I think I ought to call you something beside the name, so I say Mrs. with it."
"Dear boy, you meant to be respectful," she said, "but you are such a good, hard working boy now that you shall call me 'Aunt Judith' just as the other children do."
He hesitated, and she understood.