"Doris, dear; don't you see Mrs. Van Duser? and Carroll——"
But the boy had already advanced politely, and was standing before the magisterial presence with a funny little air of resignation to the inevitable which forced a smile to his mother's serious lips.
"Can you tell me, my boy, why you experience pleasure at the sight of your mother?" demanded Mrs. Van Duser, gazing searchingly at the child through her gold-mounted lorgnettes.
"I—like my mother, better'n any body else," replied the boy, with a worried pucker of his smooth forehead.
"Like?" echoed his inquisitor, looking up from a hurriedly pencilled note. "And what, pray, do you mean by 'like'?"
"I mean I—love her, because she's the bestest person I know."
"Is it because she gives you food when you are hungry that you love your parent? Or can you give me another reason?" continued Mrs. Van Duser, ignoring the comprehensive statement advanced by the boy.
Carroll glanced doubtfully after his mother, as she hastily withdrew to look after the luncheon table.
"I—don't know," he stammered. "I guess I like her when I'm hungry just the same."
"C., aged eight years, unable to enumerate reasons for fondness of parent," wrote Mrs. Van Duser, with every appearance of satisfaction. "The reasoning faculties apparently dormant at this age."