"I don't know it," said Mrs. Gano.
"Ethan likes it for some unknown reason. When he had scarlet-fever last year—"
She stopped, seeing the sudden change in Mrs. Gano's face.
"We had an epidemic of it," said Mr. Tallmadge, as though that fact lessened the danger. "Ethan came out of it famously—didn't you, my little man?"
"Nwingy Tat!" said Ethan.
"Oh yes, he came out all right," said Miss Hannah; "but before the crisis I sat up with him at night, and I sang 'The New England Cat' to him till I nearly died of it. Through sheer exhaustion my voice would get weaker and weaker, till it seemed to die too natural a death for him to notice. But the moment I stopped he would start up and say feverishly, 'Nwingy Tat!' It was the only thing that quieted him."
Mrs. Gano might have been supposed to regard this passion for New England cats as a depraved taste on the part of a Gano, but she said, graciously:
"Let me add my petition to Ethan's. I would like to hear his favorite song."
Perhaps in the dim recesses of her mind she had some formless idea of learning this lyric.
"It's not a song," said Miss Hannah, hurriedly. "Come, child, it's time you went to bed."