Cricket smiled back with such glad confidence and good comradeship that the President suddenly stooped and kissed the sweet, upturned little face.
“Yes, we’ll make it all right somehow,” he said, answering her unspoken thought; and then, gently putting her down, he went across the room and rang a bell. The trim maid presently responded to the order given, with a tray containing tea and fancy cakes.
The President put his little guests in low chairs, and served them himself, talking all the time as if he were one of their intimate friends. They soon chattered away fearlessly in response, telling him about their school life and the theatricals, and their mother and brother and sisters, and repeating some of the twin’s funny sayings and doings, as if he had no other interests than theirs.
“Zaidie is the funniest child,” said Cricket, confidentially. “She has the queerest ideas. The other day, ’Liza said to her, ‘Don’t wiggle so when I’m dressing you, because I can’t get on your dress.’ And Zaidie said, ‘If you’re dressing me when you put on my dress, when God puts skin on people, is that called skinning them?’”
“She is young to be interested in etymology,” said the President, laughing; “but that is certainly logical.”
“And the other day,” chimed in Eunice, “mamma had been reading the first chapter of Genesis to the twins, and she asked Zaidie what God made the world out of, and Zaidie said, ‘Out of words,’ and mamma asked her what she meant, and Zaidie said, ‘He made it out of words, because He said, “Let there be light and there was light,” and everything else like that, so He must have made it out of the words, ’cause there wasn’t anything else to make it out of.’”
“I want to make Zaidie’s acquaintance,” said the President. “She should have a chair in a theological seminary one of these days. Now, my little friends, it’s nearly five o’clock, entirely too late for you to go home alone. I’ll send somebody with you—or stay—I’ll go myself. Could I see your father a few minutes, do you think?”
“Couldn’t you come home to dinner?” said Cricket, eagerly. “You could see papa, anyway, for he’s always home at half-past five. He doesn’t see any office people then, either.”
“Some other day I shall hope to have the pleasure of dining with you, and making acquaintance with those interesting brothers and sisters of yours,” said the President, smiling his delightful smile, as he rose. “To-night, however, I’ll just see your father for five minutes, as I have an engagement, later.”
So, escorted by the President of the great university, homeward went two ecstatic little maids, in a perfect tumult of triumph and happiness. Cricket could hardly keep her elastic feet on the pavement.