INTRODUCTION
ADDRESSED SOLELY TO GROWN-UPS
Baby Jane is eight years old. She has grave grey eyes and straight, heavy, dull gold hair. She is very reserved, but those who have the honour of her friendship know her for a very fine lady with a tender heart and a loyal conscience. Because her conscience is sometimes obvious, and because she looks at you as if she were thinking of you rather gravely, some mean grown-up has said she was a prig. Perhaps she is—I have always honoured a prig.
She cannot see clever jokes—mine for instance—but laughs beautifully, so that all who hear laugh too, when perhaps Pat, the puppy, pretends to eat his big chum, Radical, the cat.
She is a friend of mine, and sometimes invites me to tea with her. On one such occasion, for lack of other talk, I told her of some of my adventures in Patagonia (where I have never been). She was deeply interested, but at some more than usually strange incident she grew red, and with much hesitation said, 'I'm sorry—it's rude to interrupt—but——'
She said nothing more, but I understood that she did not believe me. Now I did not answer in words, and expressed myself only in a deep and subtle look; but, after a long and serious gaze, a light shone in her intelligent eyes and she gave one of her lovely little laughs.
'We understand one another?' I asked.
She nodded smiling, pleased with herself and me for understanding one another so cleverly.
Soon afterwards she invited me to tea again, and greeted me eagerly over the bannisters when I arrived in her dominions, but she said nothing except in the way of courteous hospitality until tea was well begun. Then with a very rosy face she said: