“I will,” exclaimed Toddie, turning up an honest little face for a kiss, and dragging his aunt down until he could put his arms about her and give her an affectionate hug. Budge seemed lost in meditation, but the sound of the closing of the door brought him back to earth; he threw the door open, and exclaimed:
“Aunt Alice!”
“What?”
“Come here—I want to ask you something.”
“It’s your business to come to me, Budge, if you have a favor to ask,” said Mrs. Burton, from the parlor.
“Oh! Well, what I want to know is, how did the Lord make the first hornet—the very first one that ever was?”
“Just the way he made everything else,” replied Mrs. Burton. “Just by wanting it done.”
“Then did Noah save hornets in the ark?” continued Budge. “’Cause I don’t see how he kept ’em from stingin’ his boys and girls, and then gettin’ killed ’emselves.”
“You ask me about it after lunch, Budge,” said Mrs. Burton, “and I will tell you all I can. Now run and play.”
The door closed again, and Mrs. Burton, somewhat confused, but still resolute, seated herself at the piano for practice. She had been playing perhaps ten minutes, when a long-drawn sigh from some one not herself caused her to turn hastily and behold the boy Budge. A stern reproof was ready, but somehow it never reached the young man. Mrs. Burton afterward explained her silence by saying that Budge’s countenance was so utterly doleful that she was sure his active conscience had realized the impropriety of his affair with the jar, and he had come to confess.