“Notice the superscription. Ever been any others with the same?”
“Yes, suh, heaps. Most all of them comes to Miss Kimono. Though some is just plain Miss Smith.”
“Hmm! Hmm! This is—this is—disturbing,” admitted Mr. Smith.
Uncle Joe dropped into deep thought and sat so long in profound quiet that Josephine, playing on the carpet near by, folded her hands and watched him anxiously. She had grown to love his stern old face, that was never stern to her, with all the fervor of her affectionate heart; and presently she could not refrain from tiptoeing to him and laying her soft fingers tentatively upon his arm. He looked up at her, smiled, and murmured, more to himself than to her:
“Strange, strange. I’ve noticed something, a familiar trick of manner, something unforgotten from boyhood, Aunt Sophronia— Little Josephine, where is your—your nurse?”
“In the sitting-room with Mrs. Merriman, Uncle Joe. Shall I call her?” she answered.
“If you will, dear. I’d like to speak with her a moment,” said he.
The ladies were deep in the intricacies of a new lace pattern, and though Miss Kimono rose obediently to the summons Josephine delivered, Mrs. Merriman for once forgot the requirements of etiquette and followed without invitation. But Mr. Smith was now too excited to notice this, and so it happened that one of the old gentlewoman’s wishes was gratified without anybody’s connivance. “May I be there to see,” she had said, and here she was.
“Miss Smith, what is your Christian name?” demanded the master of the house.
“Desire Parkinson, Mr. Smith,” glancing toward the letters lying on his table, replied the nurse. They flung their brief remarks at each other, as though they were tossing balls, thus: