II
THE BISCUIT LINK
It was at supper that the terrible realization came to Abner Sawyer that Jimsy liked everything and every one rather too well. He liked the ham and he liked the biscuits, he accepted alarming quantities of marmalade with utter confidence in his digestion; his round eyes swept every nook of the prim old room and marveled at old-fashioned china and silver that might have come over in the Mayflower, and then again might not, and he continued irreverently unaware that the first citizen was president of the Lindon Bank and therefore not a person to be liked indiscriminately by urchins. Thanks to something in Aunt Judith's eyes, furtively concessional to boyhood, Jimsy had mislaid what little constraint and shyness he had had at first. His at-homeness might be gauged at a glance by the way he gazed at the biscuits.
"Dear me," said Aunt Judith, glancing from Jimsy to the biscuits to see which most threatened the other, "I—I scarcely think—I hardly know. Abner?"
Time, Abner, now to impress this urchin once for all with a show of power in terms he can understand!
Mr. Sawyer settled the trivial question of biscuits with dignity.
"James," he said. "You may have just one more biscuit."
And Aunt Judith nodded:
"Just as you say, my dear!" as she had been nodding effasively for thirty years.