“Mister wants them to be good,” said Gringo. “He says nothing else counts, if you haven’t got that rock-bottom character. My! what a training they’ll have. If they don’t want to serve their fellow-men, they’ll have a fight with the missis. She has gone batty on the subject.”
“I hear she even believes in women voting,” I said cautiously.
“She believes in letting men, and women, and children, and animals do everything they blank please, provided they don’t bang into any other men’s, women’s, children’s or animals’ rights. Liberty for her. None of your coop-me-up rules.”
“It’s a good thing she’s got out of that old society, sleep-eat-and-play life,” I said.
“A mighty good thing,” observed Gringo. “She was most dotty.”
“Hist!” I cried, “who’s crying?”
“Little Cyria,” said Gringo, “she’s a regular baby—temper too—but our own.”
Poor little brown girlie—she trotted toward the blue garden, ran up to the abstracted Mr. Bonstone and clasped both his knees. “Oh! Daddy, Daddy, Cyria’s mos’ dead.”
“What’s the matter, baby?” he asked kindly, and sitting down on a rustic bench, he took the child on his lap.
“Thomas’ little boy has been teasin’ me. I wented up to the stable with nurse. The boy said, ‘Feel your nose, little girl——’” and she went on, to choke out her story of despair. The bad boy had said she was only a “’dopted” child, and now there were two babies who were real babies, and she would either be sent away or put in a corner.