“‘Oh, Bob! I m sorry you’re bad. But you are. You’re very bad indeed, so I mustn’t tell you about the ten little Injuns. You’re getting to be bad just like them.’
“By that time she had lifted the boy out of the tub and dried him and slipped a garment upon him, he not protesting in the least. Then she stood him up in her lap, and, looking at him in seeming surprise, she exclaimed:—
“‘Why, Bob isn’t bad a bit! Evey made a great big mistake. Evey’s going to tell Bob about the ten little Injun boys.’ And from that moment there was no disturbance in the nursery except the noise of joyous laughter.
“I said to her:—
“‘You deal with them just as if they were wild animals to be tamed.’
“She answered:—
“‘So they are, only people often forget it, cruelly.’”
“Well, now,” said Kilgariff, “let me have your other reason, or reasons, for thinking that what I set out to say had some reference to Evelyn. I plead guilty to your charge that I caught sight of Evelyn teaching the mare, and that I was charmed by the sweetness and sympathetic jollity of her voice, as she addressed the animal in her winning way. But you were going to offer another fact in support of your assumption. What was it?”
“Why, simply that you hadn’t spoken for ten minutes before you addressed me. You were meditating, and whenever you meditate nowadays, you are thinking of Evelyn.”