I laughed at her fastidious fancy.
"You want to fly, I suppose?" I said.
"O, yes; I should like that."
"And you don't want to have wings?"
"Well, I shouldn't mind the wings exactly; but however would one be able to keep them nice?"
"There you go; starting from one thing to another, like a real bird already. When you can't answer one thing, off to another, and, from your new perch on the hawthorn, talk as if you were still on the topmost branch of the lilac!"
"O, yes, papa! That's what I've heard you say to mamma twenty times."
"And did I ever say to your mamma anything but the truth? or to you either, you puss?"
I had not yet discovered that when I used this epithet to my Connie, she always thought she had gone too far. She looked troubled. I hastened to relieve her.
"When women have wings," I said, "their logic will be good."