“We call her that,” says Jill, “because her teeth click so when she gets excited. At night she keeps ’em in a glass of water. Do you suppose they click then?”
“Her hair comes off too,” says Jack, “and it’s all gray underneath. We fished it off once, and she was awful mad.”
“You just ought to hear her when she gets mad,” says Jill. “She drops her H’s.”
“She don’t do it before folks, though,” says Jack, “’cause she makes believe she’s French. She’s awful good to us, though, and we love her just heaps.”
“You’ve got queer ways of showin’ it,” says I.
“What makes Aunt Martha so scared of her?” says Jill. “Do you think it’s so she would really and truly murder us all and run off with the jewelry, or that she’d let in burglars after dark? She meets someone every Thursday night by the side gate, you know.”
“A tall woman with veils over her face,” adds Jack. “We hid in the bushes and watched ’em.”
“Say, for the love of Mike,” says I, “is there anything about your governess you kids haven’t heard or seen? What more do you know?”
“Lots,” says Jill. “She’s scared of Marie, the new maid. Marie makes her help with the dishes, and make up her own bed, and wait on herself all the time.”
“And she has to study beforehand all the lessons she makes us learn,” says Jack. “She studies like fun every night in her room, and when we ask questions from the back of the book she don’t know the answers.”