This talk, though rather un-English in phrase, is so intentionally jolly, I become quite familiar, so ask: “Dear Show Off, why did the sweet Aunt Robet never get married?”
“She is going to be, when her lover comes down out of the sky.”
This mysterious news sets Charley off into a roar of laughter, so I proceed: “What does he do in the sky? ride about on a star?”
“Yes; and fishes below with a line for pastime.”
I look warily each side of me. “When is he coming down?”
“When the signs are right. We expected him at the Outing; since then we are unhappy.”
In this lovable manner does he couple himself with his relative’s heart, who now approaches, and his snap is repeated upon her glowing cheek. But she, as Charley, gets cross, and he comes back to me. I suddenly miss Saucy, to see her flaxen hair dangling out of his sleeve, and know that it is she, in childish fashion, who had done the snapping to our disconcertment.
Laughing at the innocent cause of war I turn aside to enter the court, which we are passing. Saucy seeing, drops out of her nest and hugs close to my side; the rest proceed in peace.
“Ain’t it nice, Auntie, to have a church to step into all the week. You feel so safe to stop in such a place. No one expects us to buy something, or read something, or talk something. I wonder if they take up a collection. If not, the tax supports it.”
“I do not believe they know what money is, though certainly they do its equivalent—work. We must find the shops and select some work ourselves.”