"How do you know?" demanded Mrs. Mayton.
"'Cos he always kisses us when we do it an' that's what my papa does when he likes what we pray."
Mrs. Mayton's mind became absorbed in earnest thought, but Budge had not said all that was in his heart.
"An' when Toddie or me tumbles down an hurts ourselves, 'tain't no matter what Uncle Harry's doin', he runs right out an' picks us up an' comforts us. He froed away a cigar the other day, he was in such a hurry when a wasp stung me, an' Toddie picked the cigar up and ate it, an' it made him awful sick."
The last-named incident did not affect Mrs. Mayton deeply, perhaps on the score of inapplicability to the question before her. Budge went on:—
"An' wasn't he good to me to-day? Just 'cos I was forlorn, 'cos I hadn't nobody to play with, an' wanted to die an' go to heaven, he stopped shavin', so as to comfort me."
Mrs. Mayton had been thinking rapidly and seriously, and her heart had relented somewhat toward the principal offender.
"Suppose," she said, "that I don't let my little girl go riding with him any more?"
